Muzio Clementi - Symphony No.4 in D-major, WoO 35 

Absolutly, I agree.

No, your not. I see her too.

Dmitry Sofronov Clementi did not write any etudes. He wrote a huge amount of piano music, mostly sonatas and the well-known sonatinas known to almost every beginner, along with a number of occasional pieces (waltzes, rondos and duets for example). Clementi’s major, important and influential didactic work was his Gradus ad Parnassum - The Art of Playing the Pianoforte published between 1817 and 1824. In both the English and French editions, the pieces on the front cover are clearly described as ‘exercises’ not etudes. Etudes (best translated as studies) were something rather different especially in the hands of later composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. Clementi spent most of his life in England and is buried in Westminster Abbey; he described the pieces to which you refer as ‘exercises’ and that is the word we should use today.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 Gradus ad Parnassum is a collection of etudes. Etudes and exercises are essentially the same thing, except that "etudes" are generally understood to be "musical" and suited to concert programs. Many of the Clementi studies can serve as concert pieces.

@@stephanjwilliams Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum is a collection of instructional piano pieces which he chose to call and publish as exercises; I think insisting on replacing the English word with the French ‘etude’ (which in this sense means exactly the same thing) is unhelpful and really amounts to little more than semantics - yes the exercises are etudes if you prefer to substitute a relatively close French equivalent for the English original. As I stated earlier, ‘etude’ came to have a far wider and richer meaning in the hands of composers like Chopin, as indeed does the English ‘exercises’ which also did not in the 18th century have the more limited meaning it does today as exemplified by the London publication of the 30 ‘Essercizi’ of Scarlatti in 1738. A similar problem surrounding the word ‘etude’ arose in a fine series of illustrated talks on Scarlatti sonatas emanating from the US which chose to mistranslate Scarlatti’s ‘essercizi’ as ‘etudes’; most people interested in this can understand easily enough the original name given by different composers, and to substitute an incongruous foreign one makes no sense at all. Clementi published his Gradus ad Parnassum as ‘Exercises’, Chopin published his Opus 10, Opus 25 as ‘Etudes’; that’s what we should all stick to. Exercises, essercizi, studies, studi, etudes, lessons, and other such words (including in other languages) all had similar nuanced meanings at different times in different countries, but were all clearly closely-related.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 I guess I'm a little confused, because I'm not insisting on replacing the English "exercises" with the French "etude." I'm just saying that Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum pieces are etudes. It seems like semantics to try to disqualify them from being etudes. They are pieces of music meant to train the pianist's technique and also be used in concert (at least most of them fit into the latter category). In this sense, both Chopin's studies and Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum are etudes. One might argue that Chopin's etudes are better fit for the concert hall because they are musically better, and fair enough. But that doesn't mean Clementi's exercises are therefore not etudes. I only commented because I think it's misleading to say that Clementi did no write etudes, since from what I can gather, most people would consider them etudes.

@@stephanjwilliams I think we’ve said pretty much the same thing as you have just repeated almost exactly what I wrote in my previous reply except that you are calling *every* such instructional piece an etude regardless of whether the original word used was English, Italian, or anything else (Im really not familiar with German, but there must be equivalent words in that language as well).

Seriously? As fine as any symphony you've heard? I like it too, but let's not get carried away ...

@@GoldinDr I said as fine as not as great as. It's not as masterful as some other works. The point is that it, and many other compositions, deserve to be in the repertoire. Dismissive comments like yours keep it relegated to obscurity.

You might find that often conductors, instrumentalists or orchestras do want to play more obscure repertoire but concert organisers, programmers and producers see it as a financial liability, so they go for the usual classics. What gets played in concerts is more often than not based on a tiny fragment of the available repertoire. Thank goodness for the existence of recordings and platforms like this one, that help listeners explore unknown works and scrutinise the bias in the industry. Not to mention how it helps to strengthen the legacy of talents like Clementi, Spohr, Hummel, Weber, Krommer, Stamitz, Pleyel, Dussek, Giuliani, Salieri, and many others whose work people can now explore in their own terms and in accordance to their own merits, and not as ‘lesser than’ the usual suspects

Maybe on pianoforte although Clementi admired Mozart as did Beethoven and Haydn, Salieri and Chopin Mozart Admired Clementi's jumps, his right hand passages & use of thirds

@@chesterholt4121Mozart and Clementi had a piano duel at the Court for the Emperor and the Grand Duchess. Clementi graciously admitted to having been entranced by Mozart’s playing. He later wrote: “Until then I had never heard anyone play with so much spirit and grace.” Mozart was not nearly so kind to Clementi. A couple of weeks after the duel, Mozart wrote: “Clementi doesn’t have a Kreutzer’s worth of taste or feeling - in a word, [he is] a mere mechanic.” Officially the duel was a draw but in private the Emperor won the bet with the Grand Duchess who had to admit Mozart was the better.

Bartje Bartmans I’m not entirely sure that this contest was comparing like with like. Clementi, even in 1781 was displaying signs of a new, what was to become 19th century, Beethoven style technique; Mozart’s technique was a quintessential 18th century technique - they were not quite the same thing. It is worth noting that on the one occasion in 1787 when Beethoven may have heard Mozart play - though never met him - he described Mozart’s playing as ‘choppy’ ie no legato; in other words, not a modern piano technique. Clementi, along with other composers such as Dusek, Field and Cramer (and their pupils), were on the other hand, at the forefront of an entirely new piano playing method and technique. This new technique and writing for the keyboard was developed partly in response to the new, much more powerful instruments available firstly in London where Haydn came across them and modified his keyboard writing, and then across Europe where the music of Beethoven for example, is clearly from a completely new age; he is writing using the techniques of Clementi et al, not Mozart, and for instruments that would have been unknown to Mozart.

I know Mozart was very talented but he was a bit of a prick. Clemente should be way more known than he is.

He led a performance of it in 1822. It is unknown how much earlier he began or completed the work.

Pietro Spada. Milano, Suvini Zerboni, 1976 - (XIII, 167 p.)

@@GiuseppeFochesato Spada's is a very bad edition. A better one has been published by Sala. But look for a still better one, in the public domain and with parts, on IMSLP, soon.

It's two horns, two trumpets and three trombones. Remarkably rich orchestration for the early 1800s. I think it's a terrific piece and have performed it very successfully with amateur orchestras.

I was under the impression that the Beethoven fifth was the first symphony to use trombones. (complete by 1898) Is this work earlier than that, do you know?

Jack Housman Clementi's symphony was written and revised over a period of time. He knew Beethoven and his works. I would think Beethoven's 5th appeared before Clementi had finished tinkering with his, and maybe influenced his orchestration.

Hi eddie, where did you find the score and parts? Thanks!!

@@jackhousman6637 You mean 1798, I think.

WoO literally means "without opus", i. e. the work was not published in its author's lifetime. Any number of composers from that time will have WoO among their catalogue.

@@bigg2988 @Big G 8 months ago... literally means "without opus", i. e. the work was not published in its author's lifetime. Muzio Clementi was music publisher, editor, the probability that he did not publish his symphonies is zero! Other composers, such as P. Vranički, ... also did not publish their key symphonies. The illusion has been created that Beethoven has created something new! No, he did not create the musical matrices by which he composed. These musical matrices were created by: Paul Wranitzky Symphony in D minor 'La Tempesta' ( 1790), Symphony in C (1790).... Étienne Nicolas Méhul "Timoléon", Overture to the incidental music (1794), Étienne Nicolas Méhul "La chasse du jeune Henri", Overture to the opera Le jeune Henri (1797), Muzio Clementi - Symphony in B-flat major, Op.18, No.1 (1785.) Muzio Clementi - Symphony No.2 in D-major, Op. 33 (1793.),..., Ignace Joseph Pleyel, Viotti, Andrea Luchesi, Paisiello, Benda, Cramer, Hummel...

Just before bath time