A torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral, Beethoven’s pupil, friend and protégé Carl Czerny is almost forgotten today except as the author of educational piano pieces and the author of a longinfluential piano method. But like his peers among Beethoven’s circle of friends, Czerny was one of those who carried on the torch of the late-classical style into the early years of the age of Romanticism, and made a distinctive contribution through his own creative work. He was a gigantically prolific composer, and much of his huge output has remained unknown since his death. Yet there is plenty in it that is worth searching out, and as a virtuoso pianist his most substantial piano works, such as the sonatas, give him a definite claim to fame. Czerny’s contention that the sonata is able to contain ‘most of the other principal forms’ is eloquently reflected in this series: his sonatas are distinguished by the range and variety of the different forms making up the individual movements. Moreover only four sonatas (Nos. 3, 4, 10 and 11) are in the classical four-movement form; the others are cast in five or even six movements. Martin Jones’s complete recording of these works, of which this recording of Nos. 5, 6, 8 and 9 constitutes the first volume, may help to restore to the repertoire a fascinating body of work.