Improvising for a Fashionable Audience

Friedrich Kalkbrenner and the Apotheosis of the “Popular” Style

Abstract

This study examines the improvisational practice of Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785–1849), a virtuoso pianist, prolific composer, and one of the most influential pedagogues of his era. Between 1823 and 1824, at the peak of his career in England, he undertook concert tours in Germany, Ireland, and Scotland. The accounts of these performances provide significant insight into the transformations of concert culture in the first half of the nineteenth century, marked by an expanding and increasingly diverse audience and the corresponding need to adapt programmes and performance practices to “popular” tastes. In almost every concert Kalkbrenner improvised on local themes familiar to listeners, often employing pre-established formulas and frameworks within the brilliant style of the era. This article draws on recently uncovered sources — including unpublished correspondence and contemporary newspapers reviews — to delineate the distinctive features of his improvisational style.

https://www.lim.it/it/chigiana/7110-chigiana-iii-7-lv-9788855435222.html