The project of recording all of Muzio Clementi's sonatas is not a small one, there being around 70 sonatas for keyboard alone and several more with ...
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The project of recording all of Muzio Clementi's sonatas is not a small one, there being around 70 sonatas for keyboard alone and several more with optional accompaniment by other instruments. Versatile pianist Howard Shelley's first volume on Hyperion of the solo sonatas is a great beginning to his series, which should run to 12 full discs (in six releases). Shelley's version on a modern piano complements the series by Costantino Mastroprimiano on Brilliant performed on a fortepiano. (Pietro Spada's recordings on Arts, while exhaustive and thoroughly researched, can be rather workmanlike in execution.) Both series are covering the material in roughly chronological order, allowing listeners a chance to hear how Clementi's writing developed as he matured and as music in general moved from the Classical era to the Romantic. This doesn't necessarily mean his compositions became more complex or difficult to perform. Clementi frequently wrote for particular students of his and would match the music to the...
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