Muzio Clementi: Sheet music to download and print Piano music by Muzio Clementi to download and print: Sonatinas, Sonatas, Total pieces by Clementi: 23
Posts in Piano Forum about Clementi:
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Indeed i have been reading an interesting book on the life of Field and his music.
I had read before that Clementi had treated Field little better than a slave, but it now appears that he did introduce him to certain members of the Russian nobility, that ensured his future success and put him in charge of his Piano Warehouse in St Petersberg. In addition, whilst Clementi was tight fisted with Field, he was no more generous with himself and would always do his own washing whilst in St Petersberg, to avoid charges from the local linen ladies. This is rather incredible as at this time, Clementi was remarkably rich.
Field in later life appears to have been totally the reverse and would throw his concert fee's on the floor of his apartment, which much to his amusement was often eaten by his dog. On another occasion, he lit his cigar with a 100 Rouble note that had been given to him after a concert.
I think Clementi has received some bad press about his relationship with Field, so over 170 years after his death, i think we should give him a break.
Thal
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I think Clementi is a great composer that has been ignored for a great deal of time. His Sonatinas are masterpieces, and his Gradus ad Parnassum is a superb set of technical Etudes. Even Chopin gave Clementi's material for his students to study, such as the Gradus ad Parnassum and Preludes and Exercises. Some of Clementi's Octave Etudes can be very challenging. Beethoven did the same to his students, as Bernhard said previously. In the book Piano Notes, Charles Rosen says that Mozart thought Clementi was a charlatan, "although he admited that Clementi knew how to play rapid passages in thirds (Mozart solved the problem of his own inferiority in this respect by never writing such pasages)..."
Another quote: The most accurate description of Beethoven's regard for Clementi's music can be found in the testimony of his assistant, Anton Schindler, who wrote the following: "He {Beethoven} had the greatest admiration for these sonatas, considering them the most beautiful, the most pianistic of works, both for their lovely, pleasing, original melodies and for the consistent, easily followed form of each movement. Beethoven had but little liking for Mozart's piano music, and the musical education of his beloved nephew was confined for many years almost exclusively to the playing of Clementi sonatas." (Beethoven as I Knew Him, ed. Donald M. MacArdle, trans. Constance S. Jolly, Chapel Hill and London, 1966).
This site contains very interesting information on Clementi:
[url]http://www.classicalenthusiast.com/clementi.htm[/url]
It also describes how Clementi had an impact on the composers of his time.
Another site that is worth reading: [url]http://www.carolinaclassical.com/clementi/index.html[/url]
I still find great use in Clementi's works, and I think he is a great composer that should not be forgotten.
Mario Barbosa
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