Clementi Piano

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), also known as "The Father of the Pianoforte" played an essential role in the development of both piano repertoire and the instrument itself. As a composer and virtuoso pianist, his sonatas spanned the transition from Scarlatti’s keyboard style to the beginnings of the Romantic period; as a publisher and manufacturer, he was responsible for a number of developments to piano performance and construction. His music is full of wit, elegance, budding romantic emotions, brilliance and a spectacular display of virtuosity. As a teacher and pianist himself Clementi developed the piano technique in a revolutionary way, paving the way for later keyboard giants Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt.

Now the famous and successful Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo turns to the American composer Amy Beach. Her compositional oeuvre marks a high point within the great phase of consolidation experienced by art music in the United States between the Civil War and World War I. Amy Beach was not the first American woman who composed or the first America woman who earned money with her compositions; but she created a stir in the music world by forging ahead into genres in which previously only men had distinguished themselves. However, it was above all the piano that was Amy Beach’s lifelong companion.

The unstoppable, 87-year-old pianist Aldo Ciccolini returns with another scintillating disc of solo piano works for the young label La Dolce Volta. Following on his first and highly-praised recording devoted to Mozart, Ciccolini pairs further recordings of Mozart with Muzio Clementi's Piano Sonata No.2, Op.34. Clementi is now known mainly for his pedagogical works, but he is a major figure in the history of music for the piano, and was greatly admired by Beethoven. Ciccolini's Mozart selections include the Piano Sonata K332 and the celebrated diptych comprising the Fantasy in C Minor K475 and the Piano Sonata in C Minor K457. Through their expressive depths and their preromantic accents, these powerful works illuminate the subtleties of the musical progression from the Classic to the Romantic.

This album is entirely dedicated to the piano works of Muzio Clementi, the "father of the piano". Clementi composed almost 110 piano sonatas. Erik Satie, a contemporary of Debussy, later parodied the style of the early sonatas (also "Sonatinen") in his "Sonatine bureaucratique"

This album is entirely dedicated to the piano works of Muzio Clementi, the "father of the piano". Clementi composed almost 110 piano sonatas. Erik Satie, a contemporary of Debussy, later parodied the style of the early sonatas (also "Sonatinen") in his "Sonatine bureaucratique"
For the first double CD of his planned recording of all Clementi piano sonatas, Giacomo Scinardo has selected an attractive selection of well-known (op. 50 / 3, "Didone abbandonata") and unknown, but no less charming, works. Clementi's piano sonatas are still an essential part of the pianistic training of professionals and amateurs. A new recording of these stylistically versatile works is therefore highly welcome.

Franz Xaver Mozart was born just four months before the death of his father, Wolfgang Amadeus. A pianist of similarly precocious talent, he nevertheless wrote just two piano concertos: coupled with Clementi's only surviving essay in the genre, they make a sparkling addition to our Classical Piano Concerto series.