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He adopted many of the peculiar figures and combinations original with Clementi, though his musical mentality, incomparably richer and greater than that of the other, transfigured them into a new life.
His important theoretical work, "The True Art of Clavier Playing," was pronounced by Haydn the school of schools for all time. It was highly extolled by Mozart, and to it Clementi ascribed his knowledge and skill. In his compositions he was an active agent in the crystallization of the sonata form. From him Haydn gained much that he later transferred to the orchestra.
And to the mention of a Clementi piano, that short, gentle, sad, old, little sort of piano people will insist upon calling a spinet, in her flat. And so to this.... It was very wonderful and delicious, this first indulgence of sense. It was shabby and underhand. The great god Pan is a glorious god. But Priapus.... She was the most subtle, delightful and tender of created beings.
Not being a radical innovator he did not, in his treatment of the pianoforte, go beyond Clementi; and so it remained for Chopin to show the world that the pianoforte, if properly treated, will yield tones whose exquisite sensuous beauty can hardly be surpassed by any combination of orchestral instruments.
The story seems to be, however, neither true nor well-found, for in spite of his awkwardness and the hard life he led at the hands of his teacher Clementi, who made him serve as a combined salesman of pianos and a concert virtuoso, he was said to have married a Russian lady of rank and wealth. She was really a Frenchwoman named Charpentier whom he had met in Moscow.
Among those names were those of the Princes Lichnowsky and Lichtenstein, the Countesses Kaunitz and Spielmann, of Beethoven and Salieri, Kreutzer and Clementi, and finally, those of the poets Collin and Carpani.
They did not suffer themselves to be disturbed, and Clementi advised me to do the same, as washing in St. Petersburg was not only very expensive, but the linen suffered much from the method used in washing it." From the above it may be suspected that Clementi was not only player and composer, but man of business.
Beethoven's fancy was penetrated by all the qualities of tone which distinguish the string, reed, and brass instruments; his imagination shot through and through with orchestral color; and he succeeded in saturating his sonatas with these rich effects without sacrificing the specialty of the piano-forte. But in general style and technique he is distinctly a follower of Clementi.
The decade 1770-80 marks the emancipation of the pianoforte from the harpsichord, of which before it had only been deemed a variety. Compositions appear written expressly for it, and a man of genius, Muzio Clementi, who subsequently became the head of the pianoforte business now conducted by Messrs.
Before touching the life of Clementi, the first of the great virtuosos who may be considered distinctively composers for and players on the pianoforte, it is indispensable to a clear understanding of the theme involved that the reader should turn back for a brief glance at the history of the piano and piano-playing prior to his time.
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