Carl Czerny, born on 21 February 1791, died on 15 July 1857, was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist His vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works and his books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching. He was one of Ludwig van Beethoven's best-known pupils. Czerny began playing piano at age three and composing at age seven. Czerny made his first public performance in 1800 playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor. He later became Beethoven's pupil. Beethoven selected Czerny as pianist for the premiere of the former's Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1806 and, at the age of 21, in February 1812, Czerny gave the Vienna premiere of Beethoven's "Emperor" Piano Concerto. At the age of fifteen, Czerny began his teaching career, Franz Lizst was one of his pupils. Czerny composed a very large number of pieces (more than a thousand pieces and up to Op. 861). Czerny's works include not only piano music (études, nocturnes, sonatas, opera theme arrangements and variations) but also masses and choral music, symphonies, concertos, songs, string quartets and other chamber music. The better known part of Czerny's repertoire is the large number of didactic piano pieces he wrote, such as The School of Velocity and The Art of Finger Dexterity. He was one of the first composers to use étude ("study") for a title. Czerny's body of works also include arrangements of many popular opera themes. The majority of the pieces called by Czerny "serious music" (masses, choral music, quartets, orchestral and chamber music) remain in unpublished manuscript form and are held by Vienna's Society for the Friends of Music, to which Czerny (a childless bachelor) willed his estate.