Muzio Clementi, Piano Sonata, Op. 50, No. 3 “Didone Abbandonata” (Costantino Mastroprimiano)
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), the “Father of the Piano,” was an Italian-born composer, pianist, teacher, publisher, and even a piano builder. He was highly renowned in his lifetime - in 1781, he famously engaged Mozart in a piano duel before Emperor Joseph II of Austria and did not lose. He composed over 100 piano sonatas. Today’s selection is his very last one.
Costantino Mastroprimiano (b. 1964) is an Italian keyboardist. He performs Classical works on period instruments, instruments which resemble those the composers might actually have used. In Clementi’s day, composers used the fortepiano, the direct predecessor of the modern piano. The fortepiano was the first keyboard to respond to how hard the performer struck the keys. In other words, it could play both forte (loudly) and piano (softly). The name may seem comically simple today, but in the eighteenth century, it was a big deal.
In this sonata, Clementi draws inspiration from a popular opera text. Opera forms were deliberately modeled after the ancient Classical forms of tragedy and comedy. It is thus no coincidence that Greek and Roman dramas and myths were among composers’ favorite subjects. Clementi here sets to music the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas.
The fortepiano has a very different sound from the modern piano. The piano strikes a note cleanly like a bell; the fortepiano sounds more like a plucked string instrument. The piano can resonate for a long time; the fortepiano fades quickly. Thus, the piano is unmatched for total volume and richness; but the fortepiano possesses a unique clarity and edge. Clementi uses the fortepiano’s unique expressiveness to capture the anguish and madness of Dido, who has been abandoned by Aeneas.
The sonata is in three movements. The first opens with a musical cry, a falling three-note motif that repeats itself with greater and greater anguish, before giving way to a frenetic and jumpy main theme. Mastroprimiano plays with a jagged and unsettling style. (This is his intent, of course – the fortepiano is equally capable of lighthearted beauty!) He also takes tremendous liberty with tempo. Classical music, you see, is not rigidly metronomic, as we so often assume today. On the contrary, the Classical performer is frequently expected to take liberties with time for the purpose of expression. His challenge is to do this without losing the sense of the music’s rhythmic structure.
Clementi’s piano music, to me, is clearly better served by a period instrument than by a modern piano. Perhaps, if modern audiences were better acquainted with the fortepiano, they would esteem Clementi as highly now as they did in his own day.