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Muzio Clementi
January 23, 1752 - March 10, 1832
born in Rome, Italy, composed during the Classical period
Biography
Born shortly after Handel wrote his oratorio Jephtha and dead shortly after Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique, Muzio Clementi failed to write anything equal to the originality of those two composers -- or, certainly, equal to the best of his closer contemporaries, Mozart and Haydn. Yet Clementi remains a significant figure for his pioneering work on behalf of the newfangled piano, that percussive, expressive instrument that quickly displaced the harpsichord at the end of the eighteenth century. His full-scale sonatas and small studies exploited the possibilities of the early piano and groomed the technique of early pianists, and led him to be known as "the father of the piano." His influence on Beethoven has likely been underestimated.

Clementi was a child prodigy, with an appointment as an organist at age 9 and an oratorio to his credit by the time he was 12. In 1766 Clementi's father was persuaded to take the boy to study in England, the country that would remain Clementi's base for the rest of his life. In the English countryside the youth undertook a rigid course of studies, emerging in 1773 for a spectacular debut in London as a composer and pianist. Had Clementi matured anywhere else in Europe, he might have limited himself to the organ and harpsichord; but the piano was enormously popular in England, and Clementi furthered his career by capitalizing on the instrument's expanded capabilities.
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