PROGRAMME:

Clementi and Mozart were two great virtuoso concert pianists, both famous in life and both representatives of proportion, clarity, elegance and refined taste of the Viennese style.

The Clementi Sonatas are still quite underrated despite of its wonderfully satisfying melodies and Scarlattiesque rhythmic energy, but Clementi was a pioneer of piano technique in the Lisztian sense, employing octaves and double notes for passage playing. Double thirds were his specialty (he uses them to great effect in the third movement of thes sonata Op. 25 nº 5, for example).

However Mozart, after a piano competition with Clementi (deemed by those present as a draw), snidely remarked of Clementi’s playing, “His thirds are impressive, but like all Italians he’s a charlatan without a farthing’s worth of taste.”

I would like to leave it to the audience taste…:

Clementi Capriccio in B flat major, Op. 17 (1787) (7 min)

Clementi Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 25 nº5 (1790) (12 min)

Più tosto allegro con espressione

Lento e patetico

Presto

Mozart Sonata in D Major, KV. 576 (1789) (12 min)

Allegro

Adagio

Allegretto

Clementi Sonata in G minor Op. 50 nº3 “Didone Abbandonata”(1821) (26 min)

Largo patetico e sostenuto. Allegro ma con espressione

Adagio dolente

Allegro agitato e con disperazione