Clementi was a maligned composer in his day and it is only recently
that he has begun to emerge as a composer of distinction.
Mozart and his father, Leopold, both suffered from high opinions of
themselves. The Mozarts hated Salieri because they thought he was a
better musician than both of them. And they were right! They also verbally
abused Clementi. Young Mozart wrote to his father about Clementi, "He
has not a kreutzer's worth of taste and feeling. In short, he is simply
a mechanicus." This was professional jealousy and yet Mozart was even
more dishonest. He stole the main theme from Clementi's Piano Sonata
in B flat ,Op. 24 no. 2 for use in his overture to his opera The Magic
Flute.
Whereas Mozart was a villain, as already indicated, Beethoven was quite
different. He did not disparage Clementi but held him in great esteem.
Beethoven often played Clementi sonatas and often a volume of them was
on Beethoven' s music stand. Beethoven recommended these works to many
people including his nephew, the ill-fated Karl.
The other problem is that Clementi is usually remembered simply for
his 'facile' piano sonatinas dismissed as merely educational music.
But educational music is not to be sniffed at. The music of Albert Loeschhorn,
Bertini, Le Couppey, Louis Kohler, Stephen Heller are worthy to be played.
Clementi's Gradus ad parnassum is a collection of a hundred piano exercises
which have troubled students for years since educational piano music
raises technical problems that many would not wish to face. They never
seem to be performed professionally as if they are set aside as merely
exercises but the three volumes are the precursors of Hindemith's great
Ludus Tonalis. Nonetheless his greatest sonatas are played from time
to time and had Vladimir Horowitz as one champion. Other champions were
Lamar Crowson, Malcolm Binns and the great Peter Katin.
Mozart's opinion of Clementi's piano playing was way off target and
deliberately so. Sir Peter Beckford on a visit to Rome was so impressed
with young Clementi that he brought him to London where he took the
concert halls of London by storm. From 1766 until 1773 Clementi was
baed at Sir Peter's home in Wiltshire. The London public who had already
heard Mozart said of Clementi, "A greater composer than Mozart is here."
Clementi then travelled all over Europe with great success. He was the
darling of the keyboard and an exceptional pianist. No wonder the Mozarts
scowled.
There was also the curious piano competition between Mozart and Clementi
instigated by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. It turned into a combat
. As to who won there was no decision. But Mozart came off worse. Clementi
played his B flat Sonata which Mozart later stole for his opera The
Magic Flute.
Muzio was born in Rome on 23 January 1752 of a Roman father, who was
an accomplished craftsman in silver, and Swiss mother. He was precocious
as a performer and composer from a very early age and he did not have
a Leopold to write music for him to which he could ascribe his name.
He was taught the rudiments of music by Buroni, a local church choirmaster,
and , in 1759, began organ lessons with Cordicelli and two years later
had a church organist's post. Carpani taught him counterpoint and Santarelli
taught him singing. In 1764 , at the age of twelve , he composed an
oratorio Il martiro de gloriosi Santi Girolami e Celso which was performed
in Rome. After his successful concerts throughout Britain in 1776 and
later in Europe ( he was particularly well received in Vienna which
Mozart regarded as his exclusive territory) he was involved in the first
potential scandal in his life. He eloped with the daughter of a Lyons
banker and only just avoided being arrested in Switzerland where he
left the girl and fled to London where he set up a thriving music business
with his friend W F Collard which included the manufacture of pianos.
Collard pianos still exist to this day. In March 1807 his business Clementi
and Co. was destroyed by fire to the value of about £40,000. Clementi
was also active with piano pupils and composing piano sonatas. He travelled
extensively giving concerts and recitals which was financially profitable
and he renewed contact with Haydn and Beethoven the latter to whom he
granted an impressive publishing contract.
Among his pupils were John Field, whom he took to St Petersburg in
1802, John B Cramer and Meyerbeer. He also taught Moscheles and the
gifted Kalkbrenner.
Curiously Clementi belonged to the 18th century . He did not like change
which the 19th century brought. He was always looking back. At the age
of 52 he married a girl of seventeen, daughter of J G G Lehmann, cantor
of St Nicholas's Church in Berlin but she died within a short while
in childbirth of their first child in August 1805. Eventually he returned
to England, worked on Gradus ad Parnassum, married one Emma Gisburne
and composed his greatest piano sonatas, op. 50, the last of the three
being entitled Didone abbandonata. After further travel he retired to
Evesham where he died suddenly in 1832 at the age of eighty.
His remains are laid to rest in the cloisters in Westminster Abbey.
It was largely though the work of another fine Italian composer, Alfredo
Casella, that Clementi symphonies were discovered and edited. In 1934
Casella 'discovered' four symphonies, two in D major, one in C major
and the 'Great National Symphony'.
Interest in the Clementi symphonies increased. The two symphonies for
grand orchestra were published by Longman and Broderip as his opus 18
in 1787 but they were later published by Offenbach in Paris as opus
44 in 1800. A century and a half later they were edited by Renato Fasano
and published by Ricordi who recorded them for HMV. And so we had Symphony
no. 1 in B flat and Symphony no. 2 in D .
It appears that in the early 1800s Clementi abandoned writing piano
sonatas in favour of the symphony and there is some evidence that he
planned an initial set of six. But he wrote and rewrote them time and
time again . The publishers Breitkopf and Härtel pleaded with the
composer to finish them so that they could publish them.
The Philharmonic Society of London played the Grand National Symphony
on 26 March 1823 but was this the same symphony as played in April of
that year? Which two symphonies were heard at the Theatre des Italiens
in Paris on 6 April 1817?
The Grand National Symphony is so called because the slow third movement
is based on the National Anthem God save the king which tune is not
English but American it would appear!
Enter this mystery the English organist and scholar W H Cummings (1831-1915).
Hidden in his archives were a bundle of Clementi manuscripts which were
put up for auction at Sotheby's in 1917. They were acquired by Dr Carl
Engel for the library of Congress in Washington.
Apparently when Clementi died his estate , including his manuscripts
passed to his widow, Emma and, in turn, to his daughter and ultimately
to Rev P Clementi Smith, the composer's grandson who was a friend of
Dr Cummings.
It was in Washington that Casella 'discovered' the symphonies. His
editions were published by Ricordi in 1938. From 1969 the Italian musicologist
Pietro Spada correlated all the existing symphonic material and reconstucted
four symphonies but he arrived at the same position as that of Casella
namely four symphonies no. 1 in C, no. 2 in D, no. 3 in G ( Grand National
Symphony) and no. 4 in D. Pietro Spada produced a 45 page booklet on
the complete symphonic works of Clementi which booklet was published
by Edizioni Sulvini Zerboni in Milan in 1977, the British agents being
Boosey and Hawkes. As well as the four symphonies there is a Minuetto
Pastorale in D, and Overture in D and an Overture in C.
But what happened to the Symphony in B flat recorded by Fasano and
also by Alberto Zedda for Angelium?
Are we going to adopt the Bruckner remedy and refer to a symphony as
number 0 or number minus 1?
But Spada says that there are only four symphonies and three other
symphonic works!
What about the Piano Concerto in C? Why wasn't this in Spada's complete
catalogue of Clementi's symphonic works published in 1977? We knew about
it at RCM in 1964!
And so, Muzio Clementi was not just a pedagogue and teacher or merely
an educationalist but a composer of sonatas and symphonies deserving
far more attention than they receive.
Copyright David C F Wright
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