Clementi muzio biography

Muzio Clementi (1752–1832): Life and Work

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1. Say publicly father of the piano

It is in the main acknowledged that Clementi's 3 sonatas zipper. 2, published in London in 1779, represent a turning point in illustriousness history of keyboard playing. These scrunch up are often said to mark description beginnings of a truly virtuosic softness style, through their use of decency full possibilities of the pianoforte, undiluted new instrument at the time.

Clementi's unpractical work and success as a finance of the piano throughout his 50 years of career as performer, doer, publisher, teacher, arranger, and instrument impresario, brought him the honour of utilize called the 'father of the pianoforte'. He was buried in Westminster Convent (see below).

Clementi's grave at Westminster Monastery (click on photo for greater detail)
[by kind permission of distinction Dean and Chapter of Westminster]

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2. Works

Over 50 piano sonatas
6 symphonies, 2 overtures
1 pianissimo concerto
Several chamber works (mostly duos and trios with piano)
Various unnerve for solo piano: 5 Capriccios, 6 Progressive Sonatinas, and several dance movements (Rondos, Montferrinas, etc.). Additionally, Clementi wrote a number of Preludes, Exercises, president Cadenzas. His Musical Characteristics op. 19 (1787) contains a collection of Preludes and Cadenzas written in the deal of various famous musical personalities make out his time (each of them affirmed 2 Preludes and 1 Cadenza): Composer, Kozeluch, Mozart, Sterkel, Vanhall, and Clementi himself!
Vocal music: 14 Melodies penalty Different Nations (on poetry by Painter Thomson), 2 Canzonette (soprano and piano), Rondò per il Ceccarelli
Gradus ad Parnassum - a monumental set of Centred Exercises for solo piano, published get in touch with 3 volumes between 1817 and 1826 (score of Exercise 83).

Editions:

Clementi's complete frown are currently being edited by Answer Orpheus Edizioni in Bologna, Italy, kind part of the Opera Omnia effort. In March 2008, this project was given the status of Edizione Nazionale by the Italian Ministry of Culture.
A facsimile edition of Clementi's complete on one`s own piano works is found in books 1-5 of Nicholas Temperley's 20 volumes The London Pianoforte School: 1766-1860, accessible by Garland Publishing in the Decennium. Unfortunately, this series is now congruous of print, and can only pull up accessed in major music libraries (such as the British Library, Senate Sort out, and Library of Congress).
Other editions slow Clementi works (Henle, Schirmer, Dover, etc.) represent selections.

Place of Clementi's piano shop nowadays:

Some of Clementi's late piano totality constitute masterpieces that are surprisingly unrecognized by today's concert pianists. The 2 Capriccios op. 47 (1821), the iii sonatas op. 50 (A major, Recycle minor, and G minor Didone abbandonata, pub. 1821), and numerous pieces outsider the Gradus ad Parnassum (1817-1826) arrangement an impressive collection of works, abode a par with the late forte-piano works of Beethoven and Schubert rightfully well as with Dussek's greatest sonatas. The rare works by Clementi guarantee occasionally feature in modern-day piano recitals tend to represent the composer's base output, which also contains a count of pianistic gems. Amongst these, excellence F sharp minor sonata op. 25 No. 5 (1790), the 2 sonatas of op. 34 (C major bid G minor, pub. 1795), and primacy three sonatas op. 40 (1802). On the other hand, even some of these earlier scrunch up have remained underrated, such as honesty F minor sonata op. 13 Negation. 6 (1785), which foreshadows by deft decade Beethoven's dramatic pianistic writing.

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3. A musical 'all-rounder'

Clementi helped vulgarise the pianoforte (now commonly called nobleness 'piano'), a new instrument at her highness time, to which he devoted potentate entire career. He first acquired renown in London and throughout Europe because a composer-performer, playing in the courts of Paris, Strasbourg, Munich, and Vienna (where he was known as Mozart's rival) in the early 1780s. Accepting made London his home, he composed his own publishing firm Clementi ray Co., which also specialised in ethics manufacturing of pianos from 1800 onwards.

In 1802, Clementi embarked on an 8-year long trip around Europe as put in order 'musician in business', selling pianos view collecting manuscript music (notably by Beethoven) to be printed by his Author firm. He also performed in personal circles and taught piano to be imminent young musicians such as John World, Ludwig Berger (who later became Mendelssohn's teacher), August Klengel, and Frederic Kalkbrenner (who taught Chopin for a strand while in the early 1830s).

Clementi's compositional activity continued during his hold your horses on the Continent (1802-1810) and package the following decade. His 4 advanced symphonies, performed from 1813 onwards contempt the first concert seasons of primacy Philharmonic Society in London (of which Clementi was one of the creation members), did not gain the pervasiveness enjoyed by his piano works. Clementi never published them. However, he outspoken publish a substantial amount of soft music between 1817 and 1826, singularly his Gradus ad Parnassum and circlet three sonatas op. 50.

4. Didactic works

Clementi devoted a large spot of his musical career to edifying activity. Some of his contributions bear hug this area are still acknowledged nowadays:

The Introduction to the Art of Carrying-on on the Piano Forte, published strong his firm Clementi & Co. skull 1801, was widely disseminated across Collection, reprinted 10 times and translated affect several languages. Whereas previous keyboard treatises such as those of C.P.E. Music (1753) and D.G. Türk (1789) principally discussed clavichord or harpsichord technique, Clementi's Introduction was specifically written for decency piano. It also contained a abundance of short pieces for beginners impossible to get into by eminent composers such as Composer, Haydn, J.S. Bach, and Beethoven. That novelty, as well as the pithiness of the tutor itself, proved put in order remarkable selling tool. Many later softness tutors aimed at beginners (e.g. Privy Baptist Cramer's and Thomas Attwood's) were modelled on Clementi's.
The Preludes and Exercises for piano, appended to the Ordinal edition of Clementi's Introduction to blue blood the gentry Art of Playing on the Pianissimo Forte, which appeared in 1811, were written for piano students (beginners hear advanced).
The Six Progressive Sonatinas op. 36, published by Clementi & Co. amusement 1797, were written for beginners. These Sonatinas are still popular amongst today's piano teachers, over 200 years stern their publication!
The Selection of Practical Unanimity (full title: Selection of Practical Inside, for the Organ or Pianoforte; Including Voluntaries, Fugues, Canons & other Clever Pieces By the most Eminent Composers. To which is prefixed an Abstract of Counterpoint by the Editor) addressed intermediate and advanced students. This effectual 536-page-long collection of 17th- and 18th-century keyboard works (from Frescobaldi to Haydn) is currently being re-edited by significance team of the Opera Omnia post in Bologna (more on the Strain of Practical Harmony).
The Gradus ad Parnassum, published in 3 volumes by Clementi & Co. (1817, 1819, and 1826), represents one of the first essential collection of Etudes for the softly (after J. B. Cramer's 84 Studies) and is far removed from wear smart clothes reputation as a set of 'finger exercises'. It is probably the personage of Claude Debussy that keeps that reputation alive with his popular ‘Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum’ from the Trainee Corner suite – a musical spoofing of mechanical piano practice aimed hackneyed Clementi. In the 19th century, Carl Tausig edited Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, only preserving the sheer mechanical studies of the collection. This edition was the most widespread at Debussy's without fail. However, ‘mechanical’ pieces form a immaturity among the 3 Clementi books. Rendering 100 numbers of the Gradus take forward Parnassum (or ‘Exercises‘, as Clementi calls them) show a great variety confiscate keyboard genres and styles: Sonata movements, Suites, Preludes, Fugues, Canons, Adagios, Scherzos, Capriccios, etc. See score of Pay off 83. More on the Gradus be in no doubt soon on this site...

5. Clementi and London musical institutions: King's Theatre, Philharmonic Society, Royal Academy match Music

King's Theatre:
After 7 years do paperwork living at his patron Sir Shaft Beckford's Stepleton House in Dorset (1766-1773), Clementi moved to London, aged 21. There, he obtained a job renovation Opera conductor at the King's Theatrics in Haymarket. At the time, 'conducting' meant holding the continuo part imitation the harpsichord during a performance. Longstanding the 'director' (whom we now challenge the 'leader') commanded the orchestra yield the first violin desk, the 'conductor' coordinated the whole performance (singers + orchestra) from the keyboard. The rule of the baton for the governor, which is currently in use, was only introduced in London around say publicly 2nd decade of the 19th century.
These 'early London years' (1773-1780) were shaping ones for Clementi. He did throng together perform extensively as a soloist \'til 1779, the year of his meteoric success with the op. 2 sonatas, which established his reputation as unembellished keyboard virtuoso. While his position jaws the King's Theatre enabled him trigger earn a living and have catch to the mainstream London musical activities of his time, it also legalized him to consolidate his art way in from excessive public exposure. A 'Memoir of Clementi', published in the Four times a year Musical Magazine and Review of 1820 (and probably written by Clementi's conglomerate partner Collard), stresses the importance these years at the King's Theatre kept in shaping Clementi's musical personality:
'Soon tail end he had quitted Dorsetshire to abide in London, he was engaged commence preside at the harpsichord, in grandeur orchestra of the Opera-house; and confidential an opportunity, which he never ignored, of improving his taste by description performances of the first singers prop up the age. The advantage which agreed derived from this species of con was quickly shown by the highspeed progress he made, beyond his procreation, in the dignity of his constitution of execution, and in his senses of expression. This he also harry into his compositions...'
Sources:
- Quarterly Musical Magazine extort Review, vol. II (London: 1820)
- Clementi: Coronet Life and Music (Leon Plantinga: City University Press, 1977)
Philharmonic Society of London:
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Royal Academy of Music
An prolonged article in the Quarterly Musical Serial and Review of 1822, entitled 'Plan for the Formation of an Unreservedly Conservatorio', describes the rationales behind representation foundation of the Royal Academy salary Music, Britain's senior Conservatoire. A wallow of prospective professors at the Faculty, dated 23rd July 1822, includes Muzio Clementi as organ and piano lecturer (and probably also as head unsaved the keyboard department, Clementi being influence 'senior' pianist and most established performer in the list). However, Clementi's label does not appear in the 'official' list of professors, published a seizure months later. He may have declined the offer: his business was luxuriant, trips to the Continent were grant the agenda, and Clementi, now 70 years old, might have begun acknowledge envisage retirement (which eventually materialised encompass 1830).
The image below shows, on nobleness left, the list of 'prospective' professors at the Royal Academy of Punishment before its creation, and on probity right, the 'official' first list assault professors, published a few months later.

From Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, vol. IV (London: 1822) [click on discover for greater detail]

Some 'useful' prizes intend students who showed 'diligence, talent, ask proficiency' at their semestrial examination assume the Royal Academy included 'a be appropriate of Beethoven's, Mozart's or Clementi's sonatas'.
Thus Clementi and his 'school of soft playing' were well respected in decency early days of the Royal College of Music, particularly with Clementi's flame W. Crotch as principal of blue blood the gentry establishment, and Clementi's pupil J.B. Cramer as piano professor. It is expenditure noting that Mozart and Beethoven were equally 'represented' in this list catch the fancy of first Academy professors: Thomas Attwood was one of Mozart's most talented grade, Ferdinand Ries a pupil of Beethoven's, and Cipriani Potter a friend precision Beethoven's.

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6. Clementi and Co.

Clementi pianoforte (c.1812), in illustriousness possession of David Hackett, Northamptonshire (click on photo for greater detail)
[image reproduced with the kind blessing of David Hackett].

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