The present album is devoted entirely to the ouvre of Clementi, the “Father of the Piano”. Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi (1752 - 1832) was an Italian-born English composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Clementi developed a fluent and technical legato style, which he passed on to a generation of pianists, including John Field, Johann Baptist Cramer, Ignaz Moscheles, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Carl Czerny. He was a notable influence on Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin. As a composer of classical piano sonatas, Clementi was among the first to create keyboard works expressly for the capabilities of the piano. Clementi composed almost 110 piano sonatas. Some of the earlier and easier ones were later classified as sonatinas after the success of his Sonatinas Op. 36. However, most of Clementi’s sonatas are more difficult to play than those of Mozart, who wrote in a letter to his sister that he would prefer her not to play Clementi’s sonatas due to their jumped runs, and wide stretches and chords, which he thought might ruin the natural lightness of her hand. For Volume 1 of his planned recording of all Clementi piano sonatas, Giacomo Scinardo has chosen an attractive selection of well known (Op. 50/3, “Didone abbandonata”) and unknown works.
