The father of Muzio Clementi, however, did exactly the opposite. When Muzio was 14, his father agreed to let Sir Peter Beckford, a wealthy Englishman visiting Italy, take his son away to his estate in Dorset. There, young Muzio would entertain Beckford’s family in return for a sponsored musical education, with Sir Peter later claiming to have ‘bought’ Clementi for a seven-year period.
Those seven years, however dubiously arranged, were crucial in honing the spectacular keyboard technique which later brought Clementi face to face with another precociously talented musician – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In December 1781, Clementi, now aged 29, was visiting Vienna as part of a concert tour in Europe. An invitation arrived from Viennese court circles: would Clementi care to play for the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and his guests on Christmas Eve?
Mozart, aged 25 and working as a freelance musician in Vienna, received a similar invitation. Both men readily accepted. But did they know in advance they would be pitted against one another in a piano-playing competition? If Clementi’s account of the evening is anything to go by, it would seem not. ‘On entering the Emperor’s music room I found there someone whom, because of his elegant appearance, I took for one of the Emperor’s chamberlains,’ he later recounted. ‘But scarcely had we begun a conversation when we soon recognised each other as Mozart and Clementi.’
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Denne historien er fra December 2022-utgaven av BBC Music Magazine.
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Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.
Composer of the month - Bohuslav Martinů - Though the Czech absorbed many influences from his exile abroad, his colourful music was always distinctively his own
The youngest of six, Bohuslav was a sickly child, and his father or older sister often had to carry him the 193 steps up to the tower. He was shy at school, too, though showed an early talent for the violin and gave his first concert at 14. By the following year, the future composer was off to the Prague Conservatoire to take the first, if faltering, steps towards a career in music.
Symphonies Beside the Sea- Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction
Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction. It's a dimension of music-making that once was integral to many a British holiday experience, yet now has all but vanished. The tide went out, you might say, on the professional seaside (or pier, or spa) orchestra many decades ago. In their glory days, though - perhaps a quarter-century on either side of 1900-these ensembles were everywhere, from Bridlington to Eastbourne, New Brighton to Worthing, Blackpool to Bexhill-on-Sea, Cleethorpes to Brighton... the list is astonishing.
Richard Morrison- Do Classical Works About Mortality Reveal More To Us As We Get Older? Is it inevitably true that, as we journey through the decades, we are better able to interpret or empathise with a profoundly death-obsessed masterpiece such as Schubert's Winterreise?
As we get older do we respond differently to that vast canon of music dealing with mortality? Is it inevitably true that, as we journey through the decades, we are better able to interpret or empathise with a profoundly death-obsessed masterpiece such as Schubert's Winterreise? Or do human beings possess such a flexible sense of empathy that we can relate to virtually any state of mind if it is evoked convincingly enough by a composer?
Do Notes Win Votes? - There are multi-dimensional ways that music is used by political campaigners and their supporters today.
It was a little bit of history repeating when Rishi Sunak announced the UK General Election to the heckling of his political opponents blasting out D:Ream's 'Things Can Only Get Better'.
Västra Karup Sweden
The spirit of soprano Birgit Nilsson is alive and well in the town of her birth, home to a festival dedicated to her memory
Federico Colli
\"At this moment in time we don't need more virtuosi. We need musicians to engage with the philosophy of music
Harmonic Progression
What happens when classical music-style levels of ambition, invention and sheer length are brought to pop? The answer, as Meurig Bowen explains, is Prog Rock
Golden years
Young musicians may be physically fit, but with age come the advantages of wisdom and experience
Sweet Sixteen
As The Sixteen celebrates its 45th birthday, founder Harry Christophers speaks to Andrew Stewart about directing a choral powerhouse
