Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was an Italian born composer, teacher, publisher, and instrument maker who made his mark and spent most of his career in England. Mutius Philippus Vincentius Franciscus Xaverius Clementi was born in Rome on January 23rd 1752, one of seven Children. Clementi studied organ from an early age and by the time he was thirteen had established himself as chief organist at San Lorenzo in Damaso. Here he was discovered by an English traveller, Peter Beckford (1710-1811), who ‘bought’ him from his father and took him to England, where for seven years he completed his musical education at Beckford’s family estate, Stapleton Lwerne, north of Blandford Forum in Dorset. Clementi had composed his first pieces during his time in Rome and Dorset.
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
In 1774, Clementi moved to London, where he slowly became established in London concert life as a harpsichordist. It was from 1779 when his opus 2 piano sonatas appeared that Clementi fully established himself as a musician of note and in 1780 he embarked on his first European tour. On December 24th 1781 in Vienna, he took part in a famous piano dual with Mozart at the instigation of Joseph II of Austria, where they played the sonatas of Paisiello before improvising on their own compositions. Mozart admired Clementi’s skill but was otherwise scathing about the composer. Clementi, however had praise for Mozart. One of the works that Clementi performed on this occasion was his Toccata, opus 11 in B flat Major. This work is is a fast tempo, diatonic work, that you can imagine Clementi improvising passages of to impress Joseph II and his guests, who included The Grand Duke of Russia, who would become Tsar Paul II. There is evidence that Mozart was influenced by Clementi, as the overture of Die Zauberflöte, has some similarities to Clementi’s Sonata Opus 24, no. 2.
Clementi returned to London in 1783 and became the main keyboardist at the Hanover Square Concert Series. He briefly eloped to Europe with an eighteen year old girl from Lyon, but by 1785 he had returned to London, where he would stay until 1802, establishing himself as a composer, teacher and pianist as well as establishing himself in business with music publishing and instrument making. During this time he became an established star at the Hanover Square concerts, the rival concerts promoted by Salomon, benefit concerts and playing concertos in the intervals at oratorios at Covent Garden. During this time, as well as keyboard music, Clementi would try his hand at symphonies, but although well received in London, his symphonies could not match those of Haydn, who made two visits to London in the 1790’s or later those of Beethoven. He would make later efforts at symphonies between 1812-24, but only fragments survive of these. Of his earlier efforts at symphonies only the two opus 18 works survive.
Besides composing, Clementi became an established keyboard teacher during this period and charged a guinea a lesson, and is even reported to have turned down work from the royal family. He taught established pianists of the time, such as J.B.Crammer as well as the sons, daughters and spouses of the gentry. He also moved into the music publishing and instrument making business, initially with the firm of Longman & Broderip in the early 1790’s, and then following the bankruptcy of that company with John Longman and other partners from 1798 at the former companies premises at Cheapside. The company flourished in the 1800’s and a second premises was acquired in Tottenham Court Road in 1806, although this was badly damaged by fire in 1807. The company became an established piano manufacturer and patented several innovations such as the ‘harmonic swell’ where a rich sound is produced by an undamped string with sympathetic high pitched vibrations giving the note a clear sound. On the publishing front the company published works by Kalkbrenner and Steibelt as well as those of Clementi, but the main coup was an agreement with Beethoven and his Viennese publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel to publish English editions of many of his works.
From 1802-1810, Clementi embarked on another extensive tour of Europe, but with more of an eye on promoting the commercial aspects of his work, such as the pianos. It was whilst on this tour that he got the agreement on Beethoven’s music. He also took the opportunity to get some of his own compositions published on the continent. On the first part of the tour he took with him his pupil, the pianist, John Field, who established a reputation as a pianist as well as selling the Clementi pianos, especially in St Petersburg. There were later allegations of mistreatment of Field by the composer but these were made by writers half a century later and no conclusive evidence of such mistreatment exists (Platinga, 2013). He married in Berlin in 1804, but sadly his young wife died a year later in childbirth. This European enterprise was also hampered by the Napoleonic wars.
On his return to England in 1810, he took back control of his business, in which he had the majority 40% stake and also continued to compose and was well respected in London Musical circles. He was named one of the six directors of the Philharmonic Society when it was formed in 1813 and would visit the continent on a further four occasions, mainly to promote his own compositions. In 1811 he married an Englishwoman, Emma Gisbourne and they would have two sons and two daughters together. With his failure to produce satisfactory symphonic works, from 1824, Clementi concentrated on his piano works and compiled during the 1920’s the 100 pieces in three volumes that constituted his Gradus ad Parnassum. This work was a collection of different piano styles in various forms such as sonata movements and fugues and constitute a vast array of the piano music Clementi wrote over a 55-year period. It is piano music that first put him in the public eye with the opus 2 sonatas and it is piano music that he will be remembered for.
The sonatas are important works by the composer and had an influence on the early sonatas of Beethoven. During his life he continued to develop in this form and his opus 40 (1802) and opus 50 sonatas show a sophisticated and advancing style that would have a bearing on music from later in the nineteenth century. Perhaps though his finest work is the C major Piano Concerto from 1793, which is not out of place against those of Mozart and the early examples by Beethoven in this genre. Sadly it is one a the few concertos by Clementi that survive and shows potential in this form. The lively opening movement is in sonata form and has some very expressive passages. The slow second movement is also well constructed an the finale shows that Clementi could orchestrate works, despite his failings as a symphonist.
Clementi continues to influence pianists today and many of his collections form part of the teaching curriculum, especially his Introduction to the Art of playing the Piano Forte and his Gradus ad Parnassum. As a composer of keyborad music he had an influence on later composers and well as contemporaries such as Mozart and Beethoven. Clementi retired in 1830 and moved with his family first to Lichfield and then to Evesham where he died on March 10th 1832 following a short illness at the age of 80. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on March 29th 1832 where a large congregation turned out to pay their respects.
RESOURCES
Plantinga, L. & Tyson, A. (2013). Clement, Muzio. [online]. Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Available from: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40033 [Accessed on July 28th 2013]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Plantinga, L. & Tyson, A. (2013). Clement, Muzio. [online]. Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Available from: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40033 [Accessed on July 28th 2013]
Cranmer, M., Jones, P. W. (2013). Clementi. [online]. Grove Music On Line. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University press. Available from: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/05937 [Accessed August 18th 2013].
ILLUSTRATION
Anon. (2013). Muzio Clementi. [online Image]. Muzio Clementi Society. Portrait from the York Gate Collections at the Royal Academy of Music. Available from: http://www.clementisociety.com/ [Accessed on August 19th 2013].