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Muzio Clementi
Compact Disc 2
1752–1832
Compact Disc 1
49’06
1 Capriccio No.2 Op.34 in F
Two Sonatas and Two Capriccios for the Piano Forte Op.34
Six Progressive Sonatinas for the Piano Forte Op.36
dedicated to Miss Isabella Savery (Gray Bookseller – London)
(first edition – Longman and Broderip, London)
Sonata in C Op.34 No.1 1 I. Allegro con spirito 2 II. Un poco andante, quasi allegretto 3 III. Finale: Allegro Sonata in G Op.34 No.2 4 I. Largo e sostenuto – Allegro con fuoco 5 II. Un poco adagio 6 III. Finale: Molto allegro 7 Capriccio No.1 Op.34 in A
9’19 5’11
Sonatina in C Op.36 No.1 2 I. Allegro 3 II. Andante 4 III. Vivace
10’30
8’39 6’52 6’00 8’15
Sonatina in G Op.36 No.2 5 I. Allegretto 6 II. Allegretto 7 III. Allegro Sonatina in C Op.36 No.3 8 I. Spiritoso 9 II. Un poco adagio 10 III. Allegro
Sonatina in G Op.36 No.5 14 I. Presto 15 II. Original Swiss Air: Allegretto moderato 16 III. Rondo: Allegro di molto Sonatina in D Op.36 No.6 17 I. Allegro con spirito 18 II. Rondo: Allegretto spiritoso
1’26 1’17 0’55
Compact Disc 3
3’44 2’04
Sonata in D Op.37 No.3 7 I. Allegro 8 II. Allegretto vivace 9 III. Finale: Presto
9’33 1’32 3’54
2’23
Costantino Mastroprimiano 5’09 2’08
fortepiano
50’04
Three Sonatas for the Piano Forte Op.37
4’50
Sonatina in F Op.36 No.4 11 I. Con spirito 12 II. Andante con espressione 13 III. Rondeau: Allegro vivace
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48’16
2’02 1’28 1’31
3’34 1’44 1’16
3’22 2’02 1’41
dedicated to Miss Harriot Gompertz (Longman & Broderip, London) Sonata in C Op.37 No.1 1 I. Allegro di molto 2 II. Adagio sostenuto 3 III. Finale: Vivace
8’14 4’36 5’09
Sonata in G Op.37 No.2 4 I. Allegro 5 II. Adagio: In the solemn style 6 III. Allegro con spirito
9’35 2’55 4’36
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The ‘Clementi’ Sonatas Muzio Clementi’s career as a businessman officially began in 1798. He was already a well-known figure in London as a pianist, composer and teacher, but after various financial ups and downs, his entry into business by joining up with John Longman’s firm to create Longman, Clementi & Co., marked a further expansion of his fame throughout Europe and beyond. As well as being occupied with building pianos, the company was a significant player in the music-publishing field, and so Clementi was able to bring all his musical activities under one umbrella: he composed, tested ‘his’ instruments, and published his own music. With the aid of Dussek, Broadwood had already extended the limits of the keyboard, expanding it first to five-and-a-half octaves, and then to as many as six by the end of the 18th century. Clementi must inevitably have taken this development on board, both as a piano-maker and composer, and sonatas ‘with additional keys’ began to appear that exceeded the five-octave range. To add to all this, Clementi compiled a piano method, Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte, which not only summed up the his musical ideas and approach to the keyboard, but also contained effects of accentuation and dynamics that ‘Clementi’ pianos were better able to realise. The 6 Sonatinas Op.36 of 1797 had a business intent as well as an educational one behind them. In 1801 Clementi made the sonatinas an explicit supplement to the Introduction. The term used derives from the works’ formal brevity as miniature reproductions of sonata structure, retaining – except in the case of the last – the subdivision into three movements. The composer also provided fingerings and ordered the pieces according to difficulty. The first and second, for example, are built on the two fundamental stylistic elements of short scales and triads. This leads on to forceful orchestral effects or fully-realised continuo in the third and fourth, ending with the fifth and sixth, which have the character of short sonatas using more of a combination of means. Before his Op.36 set, Clementi composed two sonatas and 2 capriccios that he published as his Op.34. The two sonatas Op.34 once again raise the question of piano ‘versions’ either of orchestral compositions or works that are intended to be orchestrated. Evidence in this respect is found in the hand of Ludwig Berger, who, in 1804, at the time when he was Clementi’s pupil, noted on a copy of
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the fifth volume of the composer’s Oeuvres complettes that the first sonata was originally a concerto, while the second was a symphony. The figurations used in the Sonata Op.34 No.1 leave no room for doubt. The tutti and solo sections are easily distinguished, and the second movement has a full orchestral texture, that continues into the central episode in the minor as well. Nor can there can be any uncertainty about the original destination of the music of the Sonata Op.34 No.2, with its slow, canonic introduction and subsequent Allegro, where the keyboard figurations reproduce the continuo practice of doubling characteristic string-instrument motifs. The central movement contains a whole range of typically orchestral lines. Clementi had already explored the form of the capriccio in his Op.17, where the loose structure allowed him to include quotations of popular themes of the day. With the 2 Op.34 capriccios, the composer moves away from ‘external’ references and takes the opportunity to make formal experiments and explore the possibilities of the keyboard by introducing changes of tension, powerful modulations and uneven musical periods and bars. Beethoven was familiar with all Clementi’s works, which he had copies of in his library, and he must certainly have borne them in mind when planning his last piano sonatas (from Op.101 onward): some quotations are even to be found in the first movement of the Op.57 sonata. The 3 Sonatas Op.37 are what I would define as promotional works, examples of good marketing. The composer is most concerned with bringing out the instruments’ qualities – the Clementi pianos, obviously – and the new timbres that they can produce. One particularly striking example is the use of the pedal for raising the damper mechanism. In the first Allegro of the Sonata Op.37 No.1 and the finale of the Sonata Op.37 No.3 the particular sustained sound created by the use of the pedal would have been highly appealing at the time both in performance and for those interested in instrumental developments. On p.7 is a diagram of this damper within the instrument. In fact, the Op.37 sonatas are the last examples of Clementi’s ‘light’ compositions; from Op.40 on, partly as a result of a long period of reflection, not solely connected with his business activity, his writing achieved new levels both in relation to his own work and in the context of the history of early 19th-century keyboard music. C Costantino Mastroprimiano, 2010 Translation: Kenneth Chalmers
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Costantino Mastroprimiano is a musician whose activity as a pianist and fortepianist focuses on the results of his research work. He graduated from the Conservatorio di Musica di Foggia and graduated with honours from the Accademia Chigiana di Siena as a specialist in piano (1984) and in chamber music (1985). Particular areas of study included keyboard treatises and 19th-century Italian instrumental music. His repertoire includes the great composers as well as Hummel, Eberl, Pollini, Clementi, Dussek, Moscheles, Cramer, Czerny, Kalkbrenner, Ries and Mueller. He has rediscovered and performed in concert works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven’s concertos and symphony transcriptions by Hummel, Moscheles, Ries, Czerny, Cramer and Clementi. He was editor of Clementi’s complete works for Ut-Orpheus in Bologna, where he is a committee member. He has performed in the main Italian cities as well as in France, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Germany and Belgium, where he also recorded his performances for several national radio stations (Radiotre – RAI , Ars – Slovenia’s National Radio, etc). In 1991 he performed in concert Mozart’s complete chamber music works on piano. He is a founder member of the Concert sans Orchestre ensemble with Fiorella Andriani (flute), Liana Mosca(vl), Fabio Ravasi (violin), Luca Giardini (violin) and Marco Testori (cello), which explores chamber music repertoire and composers’ transcriptions on original instruments and regularly plays at the principal Italian early-music festivals. In 2009 he founded the Forthepiano Trio with Nicholas Robinson (violin) and Marco Testori (.cello), playing original instruments. The trio is planning to record some of Ignaz Pleyel’s trios (Brilliant Classics). He teaches chamber music at the Conservatorio di Musica di Perugia. With Tactus Records he recorded Francesco Giuseppe Pollini’s keyboard works (the CD was awarded four stars in Musica and received good notices in Piano News in Germany and Fanfare in USA). For Brilliant Classics he is recording the first complete set on fortepiano of Clementi’s sonatas; previous volumes have received critical praise in Italy (5 stars in Musica, Classic Voice, Suono) and abroad (Le Monde de La Musique in France, Fanfare in USA, ABC and Scherzo in Spain, Ruch Muzyczny in Poland etc.). He also recorded Chopin’s early works on the fortepiano. in time for the 2010 Chopin bicentenary.
The new damper mechanism exploited by Clementi in his Op.37 Sonatas: see the note on page 5
Special thanks to ENAP–PSMSAD Special thanks to Associazione Culturale Incontri di Roma
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