Clementi: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
List Price:
Our Price: $13.88
You Save: $8.10 (37%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $13.25 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Music CD Cover
Composer: Muzio ClementiPerformer: Howard Shelley
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2008-09-09
Music Label: Hyperion UK
Free Music Notes for Clementi: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
Free Music Review: Shelley's Clementi series continues--the bar remains high!
Hit: 5 Stars
The second installment of Howard Shelley's Clementi sonata series is finally here, and well worth the wait. Replying to a comment on my review of Vol.I, I remarked that I expected Op.12 would be the highlight of this volume. This proves to be only partially true--Shelley's imaginatively nuanced, effervescent Op.9 was an unexpected delight, leaving me with newfound admiration of works I had hitherto undervalued. Perhaps Opera 10 and 11 are more for the Clementi completist than the casual listener, but there are plenty of treasures here.
The brilliant yet genial Toccata that forms the second part of Op.11 is a work the composer played in Mozart's presence during their infamous meeting in Vienna. It, like many of the other pieces herein, bristles with Clementi's (by now customary) rapid double- and triple-notes. It's understandable that Mozart must have felt a bit uncomfortable!
Each successive sonata of Op.12 gets a bit fuller in texture, until No.4, where, here and there, strenuous leaps in full chords presage the richness of Brahms. Here, too, the slow movements have a newfound emotional depth.
As for the performer, Shelley plays Clementi (I can think of no other way to put this) like a "real composer," not like a footnote in a musicology text! There is no "early music" preciousness, no fussy theorizing--only robust, wholesome and communicative music-making. Clementi's individual voice is allowed to ring forth without making him sound like a Haydn-Mozart "also-ran." Neither is there any apologizing for passages Clementi obviously designed to sizzle and impress with virtuosity.
In reading through many of these sonatas myself, I have often wondered how Spada and Tipo could have missed things Shelley brings out when they are so obviously there on the page: i.e., extended passages of melancholy and brief rhythmically free "cadenzas" tempering the dazzle of quicker movements thereby lending them greater substance; not merely repeating parallel phrases, but inflecting them with different dynamics and pacing. Spada and Tipo usually ignored such opportunities--Shelley gives us creative imagination, passion, whimsy and wit. If this sounds like Shelley indulges in unfettered romanticizing, such is not the case. His liberties are always within period style.
WARNING: PARAGRAPH OF GEEKY MUSICOLOGY DETAIL FOLLOWS! SKIP AHEAD IF YOU'RE ALLERGIC! Further, Shelley plays the trills correctly (hoodathunkit?), beginning on the UPPER note (hot dawg!). In his "Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte," Clementi specifies that both brief (passing) trills, and trills approached legato and stepwise, may begin, at the performer's discretion and good taste, on the main note. Otherwise, the default is that ALL trills begin on the upper note. Spada (the Clementi scholar and editor, who should know better) makes Clementi's trill exceptions the rule, misinterpreting the composer's intentions by beginning almost every trill on the main note, whether approached stepwise or not (what??!!). The lack of emphasis on the dissonant upper note, so typical of classical period trills, paradoxically becomes jarring by its very flatness.
Adding to the attractiveness of this series are notes by Leon Plantinga, a foremost authority on the composer. I highly and warmly recommend Shelley's series, but the best is yet to come!
Other volumes in this series: Vol.I Clementi: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1
Vol.III Piano Sonatas 3
Vol.IV Piano Sonatas 4
Vol.V Clementi: Piano Sonatas - Vol.5
Vol.VI Clementi: Piano Sonatas Vol.6
Classical Music CDs
Music Genres
Top music charts in Classical Music CDs
Winterscapesby London Philharmonic
Prophetic Voice; Published: 2000-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops:
The Queen, the Bear, and the Bumblebeeby Dini Petty
Childrens Group; Published: 2001-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.40
Price in other shops:
Classical Kids - Beethoven Lives Upstairs CdrRelease date: 2000-04-05; Music CD
Best price: $25.98
Tchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos))by Malcolm Sinclair, Jeremy Siepmann
Naxos; Published: 2003-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $35.99
![Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS] Image](/images/Jose-Carreras-Jubileum-Concert-VHS-1584481471-X.jpg){kind=small}
Jose Carreras - Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS]Sling Shot; Release date: 2000-04-18; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.87
Price in other shops:
![Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS] Image](/images/Tchaikovsky-The-Nutcracker-Nureyev-Park-Royal-Ballet-VHS-156127092X-X.jpg){kind=small}
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.94
Price in other shops:
![Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS] Image](/images/Lonely-Town-Lonley-Street-Sergeant-Early-Dream-VHS-1561270857-X.jpg){kind=small}
Rambert Dance Company - Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-10-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $24.99
Price in other shops:
Winter Music: Composing the Northby John Luther Adams
Wesleyan; Published: 2004-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $23.62
Price in other shops:
![Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Puccini-La-Fanciulla-del-West-Santi-Domingo-Neblett-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720382-X.jpg){kind=small}
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Verdi-Falstaff-Giulini-Bruson-Ricciarelli-Nucci-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720358-X.jpg){kind=small}
Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops:
Top Rated Albums
Howard Shelley - Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 51- Taubert: Piano Concerto Nos. 1 & 2; Rosenhain: Piano Concerto No. 2Release date: 2010-08-10; Music CD
Best price: $13.71
Price in other shops:
Ries 4: Piano Concertos: Piano Cto in C MinorRelease date: 2010-10-26; Music CD
Best price: $4.76
Price in other shops:
![Schubert: The Piano Sonatas [Box Set] Image](/images/Schubert-The-Piano-Sonatas-Box-Set-B00004SA8A-X.jpg)
Schubert: The Piano Sonatas [Box Set]KEMPFF,WILHELM; Release date: 2000-10-10; Music CD
Best price: $29.99
Price in other shops:
Howard Shelley - Clementi: Capriccios & VariationsRelease date: 2011-09-13; Music CD
Best price: $13.58
Price in other shops:
Howard Shelley - Clementi: Piano Sonatas Vol.6Release date: 2010-10-12; Music CD
Best price: $13.72
Price in other shops:
Clementi, Shelley - Piano Sonatas 3Release date: 2009-04-14; Music CD
Best price: $14.30
Price in other shops:
Clementi: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1Release date: 2008-02-12; Music CD
Best price: $13.49
Price in other shops:
Clementi: Complete Orchestral WorksRelease date: 2007-10-09; Music CD
Best price: $45.35
Howard Shelley - Clementi: Piano Sonatas - Vol.5Release date: 2010-05-11; Music CD
Best price: $13.84
Price in other shops:
Shelley - Piano Sonatas 4Release date: 2009-10-13; Music CD
Best price: $13.90
Price in other shops: