MUZIO CLEMENTI
The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.—The Harpsichord its Immediate Predecessor.—Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.—Silbermann the First Maker.—Anecdote of Frederick the Great.—The Piano-forte only slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.—Emanuel Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.—His Views of playing on the New Instrument.—Haydn and Mozart as Players.—Muzio Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.—Born in Rome in 1752.—Scion of an Artistic Family.—First Musical Training.—Rapid Development of his Talents.—Composes Contrapuntal Works at the Age of Fourteen.—Early Studies of the Organ and Harpsichord.—Goes to England to complete his Studies.—Creates an Unequaled Furore in London.—John Christian Bach's Opinion of Clementi.—Clementi's Musical Tour.—His Duel with Mozart before the Emperor.—Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.—Clementi's Pupils.—Trip to St. Petersburg.—Sphor's Anecdote of Him.—Mercantile and Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.—The Players and Composers trained under Clementi.—His Composition.—Status as a Player.—Character and Influence as an Artist.—Development of the Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
I.
Before touching the life of Clementi, the first of the great virtuosos who may be considered distinctively composers for and players on the pianoforte, it is indispensable to a clear understanding of the theme involved that the reader should turn back for a brief glance at the history of the piano and piano-playing prior to his time. Before the piano-forte came the harpsichord, prior to the latter the spinet, then the virginal, the clavichord, and monochord; before these, the clavieytherium. Before these instruments, which bring us down to modern civilized times, and constitute the genealogy of the piano-forte, we have the dulcimer and psaltery, and all the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman harps and lyres which were struck with a quill or plectrum. No product of human ingenuity has been the outcome of a steady and systematic growth from age to age by more demonstrable stages than this most remarkable of musical instruments. As it is not the intention to offer an essay on the piano, but only to make clearer the conditions under which a great school of players began to appear, the antiquities of the topic are not necessary to be touched.
The modern piano-forte had as its immediate predecessor the harpsichord, the instrument on which the heroines of the novels of Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and their contemporaries were wont to discourse sweet music, and for which Haydn and Mozart composed some delightful minor works. In the harpsichord the strings were set in vibration by points of quill or hard leather. One of these instruments looked like a piano, only it was provided with two keyboards, one above the other, related to each other as the swell and main keyboards of an organ. At last it occurred to lovers of music that all refinement of musical expression depended on touch, and that whereas a string could be plucked or pulled by machinery in but one way, it could be hit in a hundred ways. It was then that the notion of striking the strings with a hammer found practical use, and by the addition of this element the piano-forte emerged into existence. The idea appears to have occurred to three men early in the eighteenth century, almost simultaneously—Cristofori, an Italian, Marins, a Frenchman, and Schrôter, a German. For years attempts to carry out the new mechanism were so clumsy that good harpsichords on the wrong principle were preferred to poor piano-fortes on the right principle. But the keynote of progress had been struck, and the day of the quill and leather jack was swiftly drawing to a close. A small hammer was made to strike the string, producing a marvelously clear, precise, delicate tone, and the "scratch" with a sound at the end of it was about to be consigned to oblivion for ever and a day.
Gottfried Silbermann, an ingenious musical instrument maker, of Freyhurg, Saxony, was the first to give the new principle adequate expression, about the year 1740, and his pianos excited a great deal of curiosity among musicians and scientific men. He followed the mechanism of Cristofori, the Italian, rather than of his own countrymen. Schrôter and his instruments appear to have been ingenious, though Sebastian Bach, who loved his "well-tempered clavichord" (the most powerful instrument of the harpsichord class) too well to be seduced from his allegiance, pronounced them too feeble in tone, a criticism which he retracted in after years. Silbermann experimented and labored with incessant energy for many years, and he had the satisfaction before dying of seeing the piano firmly established in the affection and admiration of the musical world. One of the most authentic of musical anecdotes is that of the visit of John Sebastian Bach and his son to Frederick the Great, at Potsdam, in 1747. The Prussian king was an enthusiast in music, and himself an excellent performer on the flute, of which, as well as of other instruments, he had a large collection. He had for a long time been anxious for a visit from Bach, but that great man was too much enamored of his own quiet musical solitude to run hither and thither at the beck of kings. At last, after much solicitation, he consented, and arrived at Potsdam late in the evening, all dusty and travel-stained. The king was just taking up his flute to play a concerto, when a lackey informed him of the coming of Bach. Frederick was more agitated than he ever had been in the tumult of battle. Crying aloud, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" he rushed out to meet the king in a loftier domain than his own, and ushered him into the lordly company of powdered wigs and doublets, of fair dames shining with jewels, satins, and velvets, of courtiers glittering in all the colors of the rainbow. "Old Bach" presented a shabby figure amid all this splendor, but the king cared nothing for that. He was most anxious to hear the grand old musician play on the new Silbermann piano, which was the latest hobby of the Prussian monarch.
It is not a matter of wonder that the lovers of the harpsichord and clavichord did not take kindly to the piano-forte at first. The keys needed a greater delicacy of treatment, and the very fact that the instrument required a new style of playing was of course sufficient to relegate the piano to another generation. The art of playing had at the time of the invention of the piano attained a high degree of efficiency. Such musicians as Do-menico Scarlatti in Italy and John Sebastian Bach in Germany had developed a wonderful degree of skill in treating the clavecin, or spinet, and the clavichord, and, if we may trust the old accounts, they called out ecstasies of admiration similar to those which the great modern players have excited. With the piano-forte, however, an entirely new style of expression came into existence. The power to play soft or loud at will developed the individual or personal feeling of the player, and new effects were speedily invented and put in practice. The art of playing ceased to be considered from the merely objective point of view, for the richer resources of the piano suggested the indulgence of individuality of expression. It was left to Emanuel Bach to make the first step toward the proper treatment of the piano, and to adapt a style of composition expressly to its requirements, though even he continued to prefer the clavichord. The rigorous, polyphonic style of his illustrious father was succeeded by the lyrical and singing element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, and to compose for it accordingly. This is by no means an easy task, if we desire not to leave the ear empty or to disturb the noble simplicity of the cantabile by too much noise."
Haydn and Mozart, who composed somewhat for the harpsichord (for until the closing years of the eighteenth century this instrument had not entirely yielded to the growing popularity of the piano-forte), distinguished themselves still more by their treatment of the latter instrument. They closely followed the maxims of Emanuel Bach. They aimed to please the public by sweet melody and agreeable harmony, by spontaneous elegance and cheerfulness, by suave and smooth simplicity. Their practice in writing for the orchestra and for voices modified their piano-forte style both as composers and players, but they never sacrificed that intelligible and simple charm which appeals to the universal heart to the taste for grand, complex, and eccentric effects, which has so dominated the efforts of their successors. Mozart's most distinguished contemporaries bear witness to his excellence as a player, and his great command over the piano-forte, and his own remarks on piano-playing are full of point and suggestion. He asserts "that the performer should possess a quiet and steady hand, with its natural lightness, smoothness, and gliding rapidity so well developed that the passages should flow like oil.... All notes, graces, accents, etc., should be brought out with fitting taste and expression.... In passages [technical figures], some notes may be left to their fate without notice, but is that right? Three things are necessary to a good performer"; and he pointed significantly to his head, his heart, and the tips of his fingers, as symbolical of understanding, sympathy, and technical skill. But it was fated that Clementi should be the Columbus in the domain of piano-forte playing and composition. He was the father of the school of modern piano technique, and by far surpassed all his contemporaries in the boldness, vigor, brilliancy, and variety of his execution, and he is entitled to be called first (in respect of date) of the great piano-forte virtuosos, Clementi wrote solely for this instrument (for his few orchestral works are now dead). The piano, as his sole medium of expression, became a vehicle of great eloquence and power, and his sonatas, as pure types of piano-forte compositions, are unsurpassed, even in this age of exuberant musical fertility.
II.