Composer of the Week: Clementi

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Muzio Clementi (1752-1832): Clementi and Mozart

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)

Clementi and Mozart

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), Clementi and Mozart

Donald Macleod explores the relationship between Muzio Clementi and Mozart.

Donald Macleod explores the relationship between Muzio Clementi and Mozart, including the famed contest put on by Emperor Joseph II between the two musicians.

Muzio Clementi was one of the 18th and 19th Century’s most revered musicians – a star performer, a composer admired by Czerny, Beethoven and Chopin and an astute musical businessman. However, he also had his detractors in his own time and history hasn’t been as kind to him as to the greater names of his time – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Today his name is unfamiliar to most but it is certainly better known than the music he wrote. He was fortunate to have interactions with perhaps the world's three greatest composers, but this fortune may have also worked against him - putting him in direct competition with them. Over this week of programmes, Donald Macleod explores Clementi’s contact with the greatest composers of his day, reassessing the life and music of the man known as the “father of the piano” in the light of these encounters. 

In Tuesday’s programme, Donald explores the relationship between Clementi and Mozart, the famed contest put on by Emperor Joseph II between the two musicians and the later use of each other’s music. Donald also explores a failed romance that in the aftermath of the contest threatened to derail Clementi's musical career.

Mozart (arr. Clementi): Symphony no. 40 in G minor, K 550 (Finale)
Gisella Curtolo, violin
Lucio Labella Danzi, cello
Davide Cabassi, piano
Luigi Lupo, flute

Sonata in G minor, Op 7 No 3
Peter Katin (fortepiano)

Toccata in B flat Major, Op 11 No 2
Howard Shelley, piano

Sonata in B flat major, Op 24 No 2
Piotr Kepinski, piano

Variations on Mozart’s Batti, batti, o bel Masetto from Don Giovanni, WoO 10
Maria Tipo, piano

Sonata in E flat major, Op. 8 No 2 (II. Larghetto con espressione)
Howard Shelley, piano

Produced by Sam Phillips for BBC Wales

Composer of the Week: Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores Clementi's contact with the greatest composers of his day.

Donald Macleod explores Clementi's contact with the greatest composers of his day, reassessing the life and music of the man known as the 'father of the piano'.

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