To most people the name of Clementi probably conjures up the image only of young pianists plodding their way through simple sonatinas. This great batch of discs (which this reviewer has felt in duty bound to hear right through—nearly 18 hours of it) should certainly supply a corrective to this common view. The 80 works here, which cover a period of half a century, from a little sonata written at the age of 13 to the impressive Op. 50 Sonatas dedicated to Cherubini, range in style from the anodyne or immature (like the variations on popular songs in Op. Ibis) to highly dramatic, large-scale sonatas of Beethovenian intensity and fire, and to the foothills of romanticism. (Like Macbeth, one may be surprised that the old man had so much blood in him.) Mozart, who took part with Clementi in a contest before the Emperor Joseph II on Christmas Eve 1781 wrote that he was ''an excellent keyboard player but no more: he has good right-hand facility and features passages in thirds, but otherwise he has not an ounce of taste or feeling and is a mere technician''; but Mozart was notoriously ungenerous about other composers (though he wasn't above lifting the opening theme of the sonata Clementi played on that occasion—Op. 24 No. 2—for the fugue subject in his own Zauberflote Overture), and in any case Clementi's bravura thirds were scarcely in evidence after 1790. On the other hand, Beethoven thought highly of the artistic content of the sonatas. Clementi is often referred to as the 'father of the pianoforte': not that he was the first to write for the instrument, but the title is not undeserved because of his teaching (Cramer, Field, Hummel, Kalkbrenner and Meyerbeer were just some of his pupils) and his technical innovations—including the employment of the topmost register of the piano—which had an immense influence on other players and composers.
Even from the early 1780s Clementi's expressive slow movements were particularly notable; and another feature was the freedom of his modulations, already apparent in the finale of Op. 7 No. 3 but reaching the height of audacity in that of Op. 33 No. 1. There is virtuosity in plenty—darting thirds (as in the finales of Op. 10 No. 3 and Op. 25 No. 3), octaves and broken octaves (as in the first Allegro of Op. 34 No. 1), brilliant runs and arpeggios galore, occasional crossed-hands feats (e.g. in the sparkling Presto of Op. 8 No. 3); and increasingly in the sonatas Clementi indulges a taste for contrapuntal lines and canonic writing—the third movement of the extensive Op. 40 No. 1 consists solely of two canons, one in contrary motion, and the magnificent Op. 50 No. 1 in A, perhaps the finest of all his piano works, has a canon interrupting the harmonically poignant and pungent Adagio and another canon in the finale. In Op. 34 No. 2 appears a structural novelty adopted by Beethoven a couple of years later in his Pathetique: the reappearance halfway through the main Allegro of the dramatic slow introduction. The first of the three-movement Op. 47 Capriccios (quite unlike the rambling Op. 17 pot-pourri of popular themes) even faintly foreshadows cyclic form. And there are passionately emotional works: the febrile Op. 13 No. 6 in F minor, which may or may not owe its tension to an amorous entanglement, the anguished Op. 25 No. 5 in F sharp minor, or the deeply pathetic Op. 40 No. 2 in B minor (each of whose two movements contains a change of tempo). All in all, this collection—especially Op. 40 No. 2, the Op. 50 group, and the Duet Op. 14 No. 3 in its revised version (which was played by Cramer and Moscheles at a dinner celebrating the composer's retirement)—should dispel the picture of Clementi as a mere purveyor of 'educational material' (horrid term!).
The numbering of Clementi's sonatas in the various editions is vastly confusing: a correlated list appeared in Grove V but here Pietro Spada (who has himself edited a good deal of Clementi) mostly follows the Tyson catalogue, which is printed in the current Grove. Having been at pains, in this large and enterprising undertaking, to select the most authentic version of each of the works, it is surprising, and regrettable, that he has recorded them not on a piano of the appropriate period but, apparently, on a modern instrument (No details whatever are vouchsafed of the dates, place or personnel involved in the recordings.) He is a clean-fingered player whose handling of rapid movements (like the blithe finales of Op. 10 No. 3 and Op. 13 No. 4, or the witty extended finale of Op. 37 No. 2) is often exhilarating; but his choice of tempos is sometimes questionable. The first movement of Op. 2 No. 4, for example, is marked Allegro cantabile (in Tyson, Allegro assai) but played andante, and its Spiritoso second movement is taken at a gentle amble, one would never suspect that the second movement of the charming duet Op. 1 No. 6 bears the direction Piuttosto vivace or that the allegretto pace adopted in Op. 40 No. 1's finale represents its Presto marking. In some of the early works he seems to be confirming Mozart's critical comment ''a mere mechanicus'' by perfunctory, inexpressive playing (Op. 1bis No. 2 is a case in point), scarcely troubling to round off phrases and not even waiting long enough on rests between them, and again and again (Op. 9 provides only one instance) he is guilty of over-vehement, heavy-handed fortes and sforzandos, whose banging—far beyond the dynamic range of an early piano—is exacerbated by close recording (though this, inevitably, varies slightly over what must have been a large number of sessions). Fortunately the famous Op. 36 Sonatinas, though played decidedly objectively and somewhat inflexibly, emerge with more agreeable tone: piano students looking for models could do a lot worse. It is with the more impassioned and the mature works that Spada shows his qualities, with playing of more conviction, greater nuance and more dynamic range, and some of the late sonatas receive excellent performances. He is most ably partnered in the duets, some of which (e.g. the Op. 14 which, unlike most, are for a single piano) are among Clementi's most attractive works, by Giorgio Cozzolino: the neatness of their ensemble, and the way they distribute the balance of interest, is admirable.
It has unfortunately to be added that this mammoth issue deserved a good deal more careful presentation. Leaving aside the infelicitous translation, there are several errors: Op. 3 No. 3 is not in G but in C; Op. 11 No. 1 is in E flat, not B flat; the notes on Op. 10 No. 2 refer to a non-existent Minuet, Mozart's variations on Je suis Lindor, a tune which appears in Op. 12 No. 1, are K354, not 534. No timings whatever are shown; and on disc 12, though Op. 37 No. 3 is listed on cover and label and in the booklet, it is in fact missing, the relevant tracks 24-26 being purely imaginary. Finally, one can't help but wonder, in purely practical marketing terms, whether it would not have been wiser to allow these discs to be available separately: many who do not want, or can't afford, a set of 15 might well like to have some of the undervalued and little-known works here.'