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19THCENTURYMUSICtechniques (and indeed they often have been).For example, whereas Beethoven’s variationform at the end of op. 77 is defined by a generic“style,” Liszt’s thematic transformations arenot limited to any particular style (as is evidentfrom Liszt’s and Czerny’s use of the procedurein their different musical languages). Furthermore,variation form was a musical genre aswell as a mode of invention. Thematic transformationwas not; it could be a generativeprocess within a variety of forms, includingvariation form, but it belonged to no genre outsideof its improvisatory heritage.Nonetheless, the boundaries between thesemusical procedures can become mobile. AsBeethoven himself observed in a sketch from1809, “Real fantasy-like improvisation[Phantasieren] comes only when we are unconcerned[with] what we play, so—if we want toimprovise in the best, truest manner in public—weshould give ourselves over freely towhat comes to mind.” 86 The correspondence toCzerny’s advice to “give free reign to [one’s]flights of fancy” 87 is unmistakable. Beethoven’scomment further presages Liszt’s belief in theprimacy of “feeling and invention” in the creativeprocess. In view of this shared belief, wemay say that in op. 27 Beethoven had writtentwo sonatas, parts of whose form gave the impressionof an improvisation, while in his“Dante” Sonata, Liszt improvised—at least initheprincipal theme, a “normal first section,”are reprised in diminution. The section is theninterrupted by a fantasy-like passage (thoughone that does not retain the original motive),after which the main section returns with thetreble and bass parts reversed. The Sonata alsoalludes to its slow movement just before thecoda of its finale, a more obviously Liszt-likeprocedure.Czerny’s second category—“free variation”—is also relevant to Liszt because of the similaritybetween this subgenre of classical variationform and the principle of thematic transformation.In his discussion of monothematic improvisation,Czerny likened his own musical examples(ex. 2) to the procedure in Beethoven’sChoral Fantasy, op. 80 (containing fifteen variations),where the piano introduction is probablybased on Beethoven’s own extempore performanceat the premiere on 22 December 1808,and in the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony,op. 125 (1824). The two works, Czernyadds, form “two glorious monuments of thisstyle [of Phantasieren].” 84Finally, the great textural and melodic varietyin the “mixed form” of op. 77 (containingseven stable variations) would seem to justifyCzerny’s observation that, in Phantasieren,Beethoven “trusted to his genius for the constantinvention of new subjects.” 85 If this andthe other two works cited by Czerny do indeedreflect Beethoven’s style of improvisation on atheme, they offer an analytical basis for comparingBeethoven’s approach to Phantasierenwith that of Liszt. Pace Czerny, however, theart of thematic improvisation that his treatisedocuments is qualitatively different from thetechnique of theme and variation evident inBeethoven’s “Fantasy” works. It is of coursepossible that these later works fail to documentthe thematic transformations that characterizedBeethoven’s actual improvisations(and such transformations do occasionally surfacein his other works), but this kind of hypothesismust remain speculative. The transformationand the variation of a theme cantherefore be teased apart as separate musical84Michell, A Systematic Introduction, p. 52.85Czerny, On the Proper Performance, p. 58.86This is scribbled on a musical sketch from 1809. I takethis reference from Lewis Lockwood, whose chapter“Beethoven at the Keyboard” explores Beethoven’s extemporepractices. Reports about Beethoven’s improvisationfrequently emphasize the freedom of his musical creativity,and while such reports are hardly more than subjectivereinterpretations of an event, their consistent emphasisseems to indicate that established formal structureshad little bearing on Beethoven’s mixed form Phantasieren.For example, Sir John Russell witnessed an improvisationin 1821 wherein Beethoven “gradually . . . forgot everythingelse, and ran on during half an hour in a fantasy, in astyle extremely varied, and marked, above all, by the mostabrupt transitions” (Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries,ed. O. G. Sonneck [New York: Schirmer, 1926],pp. 115–16; see also pp. 13, 22, 51–52, 208–09). Other contemporaryaccounts of Beethoven’s improvisations includeCzerny, On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven’sWorks for the Piano, ed. Paul Badura-Skoda (Vienna: Universal,1970); and J. G. Prod’homme, “The Baron deTrémont: Souvenirs of Beethoven and Other Contemporaries,”Musical Quarterly 6 (1920), 366–91.87Michell, A Systematic Introduction, p. 74.76