Classical Reflections

Yeah, I agree. Clementi is a really really good composer, and very few people know it. I've heard historians suggest that nationalism has a role here -- there is a certain Germano-centric bias toward the "standard model" of Western music history.

Great post about Clementi, but I must say that what you call an awkward slapdash transition in Mozart is something I've always thought works rather brilliantly. Mozart has enough chops to be as subtle as he wanted to be in any situation - it's great that he didn't always choose to. In this case, the structure may not be as subtle as your Clementi example, but the timing couldn't be better. (That over-famous sonata is actually one of my favorites by Mozart, especially the first and third movements)

KG replies: I knew someone would defend it. Plenty of facility as always, timing maybe, but no evidence of inspiration, I think, beyond the music-box main theme. I've never found the peremptory initial modulation in m. 13 convincing, and there's a lot of running-in-place around the diatonic circle of fifths. I played the piece in high school, and found it a little disappointing even then (though I thought there must be something wrong with *me*, it couldn't be *Mozart*). As I tell my students, Mozart wrote many of his sonatas for his students, but he wrote his concerti to make money, and it's obvious where he put his time.

Wasn't it Horowitz who insisted that Mozart stole the main theme from the overture to The Magic Flute from a Clementi Sonata?
Thank God for Maria Tipo's recordings of Clementi Sonatas. I also find his Symphonies to be of top quality. And, I confess, I love the Op. 36 Sonatinas. They are great pieces for young and old alike.

KG replies: Clementi and Mozart were called to compete by the Emperor Joseph II in 1781. Clementi played his Sonata in B-flat, which begins with the same 20 notes (in the same key) with which Mozart later began the Magic Flute. Subsequently, Clementi quite naturally felt compelled to publish a note with his sonata to the effect that it was written 10 years before The Magic Flute.

My objection to hoisting Clementi at Mozart's expense is a historical one: K. 545 was written a full decade before the Clementi piece. This is the decade of Beethoven's early Vienna Period, Haydn's London Symphonies, and Mozart's last three in that genre -- many interesting retransitions in there to choose from (and for Clementi to learn from), and plenty of time for formal experimentation to become a central value in Sonata movements. Sure Mozart's sonatas are, in general, simpler fare in this respect...but that's kind of like faulting his symphonies for not ending with choral finales!

KG replies: Number one, I wouldn't even consider K. 545 as good as the B-flat Sonata Clementi played in his 1781 competition with Mozart, which Mozart stole the theme for Magic Flute from. Number two, by 1788 Mozart had already written the ten greatest and most sophisticated piano concerti that have ever been written, to the present day; had he wanted to write a really brilliant piano sonata, he could have (and did in K. 576 at least), though I think solo piano wasn't really his best medium, except perhaps in adagios. Number three, the point isn't at all to put down Mozart, who was a wonderful guy, and I'm all for him. The point is that the classical music world, and the academic establishment as well, elevate Mozart's output to the heavens *in toto*, and reduce the Classical Era to a caricature that keeps a lot of better-than-mediocre music in constant circulation at the expense of a wonderful non-canonic literature of gorgeous, excitingly well-argued works. I have never yet found a piano professor, or another music critic, who knows Clementi's music as well as *I* do, and I'm a friggin' "new-music" critic, fer gawd's sake.

Please don't tell me you advocate a conception of musical "progress," whereby it makes sense that Clementi's sonatas were better than Mozart's because they were later? And therefore Brahms must be better than Mozart, and Schoenberg better than Brahms, and Babbitt better than Schoenberg? And Gann better than Babbitt, perchance?

I've always loved playing Clementi. Even though his playing technique could be flashy (i.e. octaves), his melodies always seem to me more introspective than other composers. I got into him when I read that Beethoven had based one of his sonatas on Clementi - I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but there is a similarity.

Also, does it have to always be either/or (subtle Gann reference ;-)) when comparing composers?

You are perfectly welcome to use my comment as an opportunity to launch into a rant against musical/aesthetic misunderstanding. It's your blog, after all. BUT you never actually spoke to my objection, which is that you employed a historical fallacy in criticizing Mozart's RETRANSITION. That's all I said, and I think it still holds true. I said nothing of the aesthetic quality of Mozart's piece -- and still nothing more about the quality of Clementi's -- merely that your grounds for critique are inherently flawed. While we're on the subject of aesthetic judgement, however, it is worth noting that composers often import themes from other composers because they wish to expand on certain ideas, or because they feel that the intrinsic qualities of certain themes have not been fully realized...Bach did this, just for one example, with the E Maj fugue from WTC Book I. I'm not even arguing that this is what we find with "Clementi's Magic Flute," merely that it's a possibility, and more importantly to suggest that the inspiration of Mozart's piece comes not from the melody (or where he got it), but what he DID with it.

As for the idea of "musical progress" imparting value out of hand: No!, indeed, I did not make that argument (as it would lead to obviously untenable conclusions)...you did that for me. It's annoying to see my (fairly simple) argument misrepresented as a straw man, but I guess on the eve of a political election I should not be surprised. It's simply in the air.

KG replies: Fine, you didn't like my answer, and I still deny the premise of your disagreement. Given the sophisticated formal intricacies of Mozart's piano concerti, as well as some of the really novel retransitions Haydn had tried out in symphonies by the early 1780s, Mozart had plenty of inventive models to choose from - even middle-period Haydn is impressively fecund in this respect - and just about as many as Clementi would have had ten years later (there are so few major Beethoven works by 1798). And the point was not that Clementi's sonata was better than Mozart's *because* it had a more interesting retransition. That would be ridiculous, and was a straw man of your own. The point was, and remains, that Clementi wrote some fantastic piano sonatas, of which I gave an example and pointed to one of its remarkable features, which remain far less well known than pieces by Mozart that are arguably not as good - and I cited one of what I consider many flaws in that sonata, and chose the retransition for a nice symmetry. Your point seems to be: two pieces of music can only be compared if they were written in the same year? Also, Clementi certainly felt that Mozart had stolen his theme (though I take no position on the matter), but you seem to feel that Mozart is beyond criticism. On that too, we disagree.

We agree on one thing: it *is* my blog.

Actually, Kyle, I confess I think that bar 13 trill is completely spot-on... the way it just suddenly drops in, seemingly without any reason, and then turns into a contrapuntal melody... I appreciate your point about Clementi and about reputations, but your example of a weaker Mozart piece just doesn't seem to work for me!

(I would have picked perhaps the 2nd movement of the same sonata. Which I still think very nice, but I just feel Mozart is spinning out his nice tune a bit more than he might have. When I play the piece for myself I usually skip bits in that movement or just go straight to nr. 3, which I think is again wonderful)

KG replies: Well, to each his own. I think the C minor K. 457 is a little weak, too; perhaps you'll grant that one instead. I'd rather discuss the concertos.

"there are so few major Beethoven works by 1798" -- er...piano sonatas, opp. 2, 7, 10, 13 (this last deserves a "!"); early trios (which are not "major Beethoven" but are interesting; first two piano concerti; op. 18, no. 4 quartet; E flat quintet; op. 5 cello sonatas. My original point was that early Beethoven (and the last decade of the 18th century as a whole) represents a dramatic shift toward formal-treatment/manipulation-as-principle-value in sonata form movements. You're quite right that Haydn made substantial contributions to this evolution well before the dates in question. But overall, this is a conversation that the Mozart piano sonatas are absolutely not participating in; their core values, as it were, lie in a much older (and you're also right in saying, a *pedagogic*) tradition. And yes, the concerti are formally, melodically, whateverally amazing.

And of course, Mozart is not beyond reproach: for one he defaulted on debts!

"Your point seems to be: two pieces of music can only be compared if they were written in the same year?"
...that is so far from my point, which is abundantly clear from what I've written. My head is spinning from all this sinful spin. Are you secretly moonlighting for the RNC?

KG replies: What you call spin is my inability to find the slightest logic in your argument that somehow Mozart, after writing so many incredible concerti and symphonies, should have needed some further education, further models, to gain the ability to write a smoother transition from the development to the recap of K. 545. Perhaps I should quit teaching this material, resign my academic post of many years, and come study at your feet so I'll understand.

Interesting, by the way, that Beethoven's Pathetique, which reprises its slow introduction during the development, was written two years *after* Clementi's Op. 34 No. 2 in G minor, which does the same thing.