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Muzio Clementi (January 24, 1752 – March 10,
1832) was a classical music|classical composer,
and acknowledged as the first to write
specifically for the piano. He is best known for
his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad
Parnassum.



==Biography==

Muzio was born in Rome in 1752, the first of seven
children, to Nicolò Clementi, a highly respected
silversmith and Roman by heritage, and Magdalena
Kaiser, who was Swiss. His musical talent became
clear at an early age: by age seven he was in
musical instruction, and was such a good student
that by age 13 he gained a position as a church
organist. 

In 1766, Sir Peter Beckford (1740–1811), a
wealthy Englishman and cousin of the eccentric
William Beckford, took an interest in the boy's
musical talent, and struck a deal with Nicolò to
take Clementi to his estate of Steepleton Iwerne,
just north of Blandford Forum in Dorset, England
— where Beckford agreed to provide quarterly
payments to sponsor Clementi's musical education.
In return for this education, Clementi was
expected to provide musical entertainment at the
estate. It was here that Clementi spent the next
seven years in devoted study and practice at the
harpsichord. His compositions from this early
period, however, are few, and they've almost all
been lost. 

In 1770, Clementi made his first public
performance as a pianist. The audience was very
impressed with his playing, beginning what at the
time was one of the most successful concert
pianist careers in history. In 1774, Clementi was
freed from his obligations to Peter Beckford, and
he moved to London, where among other
accomplishments he made several public appearances
as a solo harpsichordist at benefit concerts for a
singer and a harpist, and served as "conductor"
— from the keyboard — at the King's
Theatre, The Haymarket|Haymarket for at least part
of this period. His popularity grew in 1779 and
1780, due at least in part to the popularity of
his newly-published Opus 2 Sonatas. His fame and
popularity rose quickly, and he was considered by
many in musical circles to be the greatest piano
virtuoso in the world. 

Clementi started a European tour in 1781, when he
travelled to France, Germany, and Austria. In
Vienna, Clementi agreed with Joseph II, Holy Roman
Emperor|Emperor Joseph II to enter a musical duel
with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for the entertainment
of the Emperor and his guests. Each performer was
called upon to improvise and perform selections
from his own compositions. The ability of both
these composers and virtuosi was so great that the
Emperor was forced to declare a tie. 

On January 12, 1782, Mozart wrote to his father:
"Clementi plays well, as far as execution with the
right hand goes. His greatest strength lies in his
passages in 3rds. Apart from that, he has not a
kreuzer's worth of taste or feeling — in
short he is a mere mechanicus". In a subsequent
letter, he even went so far as to say "Clementi is
a charlatan, like all Italians." Clementi's
impressions of Mozart, by contrast, were all
rather enthusiastically positive. 

But the main theme of Clementi's B-Flat Major
sonata captured Mozart's imagination, and ten
years later he used it in the overture to his
opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). This so
embittered Clementi that every time this sonata
was published, he made certain that it included a
note explaining that it had been written ten years
before Mozart began writing Die Zauberflöte. 

Starting in 1782, and for the next twenty years
Clementi stayed in England playing the piano,
conducting, and teaching. Two of his students
attained a fair amount of fame for themselves:
J.B. Cramer and John Field (composer)|John Field
(who, in his turn, would become a major influence
to Frederic Chopin). Clementi also began
manufacturing pianos, but in 1807 his factory was
destroyed by a fire. That same year, Clementi
struck a deal with Ludwig van Beethoven, one of
his greatest admirers, that gave him full
publishing rights to all of Beethoven's music. His
stature in music history as an editor and
interpreter of Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven's
music is certainly not less than as being a
composer himself (although also criticised for
some less docile editorial work, e.g. making
harmonic "corrections" to some of Beethoven's
music). That Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven in his
later life started to compose (mostly chamber
music) specifically for the United Kingdom|British
market might have been related to the fact that
his publisher was based there. In 1810 Clementi
ceased his concerts to devote all of his time to
composition and piano making. In 1830 he moved to
live outside Lichfield and then spent his final,
less exciting years in Evesham, where he died 80
years old. He was buried at Westminster Abbey. He
had been married three times.

==Music==


Clementi is best known for his collection of piano
studies, Gradus ad Parnassum, to which Claude
Debussy|Debussy's piece "Doctor Gradus ad
Parnassum" (the first movement of his suite
Children's Corner) makes playful allusion.
Similarly his sonatinas would remain a must for
piano students everywhere, until late 20th
century. Erik Satie, a contemporary of Claude
Debussy|Debussy, would spoof these sonatinas
(specifically the
http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-table.cg
i?collection=clemson&preview=1 sonatina Op. 36 N°
1) in his Sonatine Bureaucratique.	 
 
Clementi composed almost 110 piano sonatas. Some
of the earlier and easier ones were reissued as
sonatinas after the success of his Sonatinas Op.
36, and continue to be popular practice pieces in
piano education. His sonatas are only very rarely
performed in public concerts, largely because they
are seen as nonchallenging educational music.
Clementi's sonatas are often more difficult to
play than Mozart's, though — Mozart, in
fact, wrote in a letter to his sister that he
would prefer she not play the Clementi's sonatas
due to their jumped runs, wide fingerspacing, and
chords that he thought would cause injury for her
to try to play.
 
In addition to the piano solo repertoire, Clementi
wrote a great deal of other music, including
several recently pieced together, long worked on
but slightly unfinished symphonies that are
gradually becoming accepted by the musical
establishment as being very fine works. While
Clementi's music is hardly ever played in
concerts, it is becoming increasingly popular in
recordings.	

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's evident disrespect for
Clementi (and perhaps Italians in general) has led
some to call them "arch rivals." But the animosity
was not as far as we know reciprocated by
Clementi, and in any case Mozart's letters are
full of irreverent jibes which he never expected
to become public. 	 

Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz developed a
special fondness for Clementi's work after his
wife, Wanda Toscanini bought him Clementi's
complete works. Horowitz even compared some of
them to the best works of Ludwig van
Beethoven|Beethoven. The restoration of Clementi's
image as an artist to be taken seriously is not
least due to his efforts.	 

Muzio Clementi is a highly under-rated figure in
the music world. He is widely regarded by scholars
as the creator of both the modern pianoforte as an
instrument, and the father of modern
piano-playing. 	 

Being a contemporary of the greatest classical
piano composers such as Mozart and Beethoven cast
a large shadow on his own work (making him one of
the "lesser gods"), at least in concert practice,
despite the fact that he had a central position in
the history of piano music, and in the development
of the sonata form.

==External links==

*http://www.carolinaclassical.com/clementi/index.h
tml Muzio Clementi: Composer & Pianist (1752-1832)
*http://www.muzioclementi.com/cronologia/crono.php
?l=ing Detailed chronology of life and works
*http://www.pianosociety.com/index.php?id=343
Piano Society.com - Clementi - MP3 recording of
his Sonata in G minor op. 50, no.3 "Didone
Abbandonata" 

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