Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi (23 January 1752 – 10 March 1832) was an Italian-British[1] composer, virtuoso pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer, who was mostly active in England.

Though the reputation of Clementi was exceeded only by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rossini in his day, his popularity languished for much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

[4] At the age of seven, Clementi began studies in figured bass with the organist S. Giovanni Cordicelli,[5] followed by voice lessons from Giuseppe Santarelli.

By the age of 13 Clementi had already composed an oratorio, Martirio de' gloriosi Santi Giuliano e Celso,[3] and a mass.

He was impressed by the young Clementi's musical talent and negotiated with his father to take him to his estate, Stepleton House, north of Blandford Forum in Dorset, England.

Beckford agreed to provide quarterly payments to sponsor the boy's musical education until he reached the age of 21.

During this period, it appears, Clementi spent eight hours a day at the harpsichord, practicing and studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, George Frideric Handel, Arcangelo Corelli, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Bernardo Pasquini.

The audience was reported to be impressed with his playing, thus beginning one of the outstandingly successful concert pianist careers of the period.

Clementi started a three-year European tour in 1780, traveling to Paris, France, where he performed for Queen Marie Antoinette; Munich, Germany; and Salzburg, Austria.

In Vienna, he agreed to enter a musical contest with Mozart for the entertainment of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and his guests on 24 December 1781, at the Viennese court.

Several of his students include Johann Baptist Cramer, Thomas Paul Chipp, Ignaz Moscheles, Therese Jansen Bartolozzi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ludwig Berger (who went on to teach Felix Mendelssohn), and John Field (who, in his turn, would become a major influence on Frédéric Chopin).

[8] Clementi also began manufacturing pianos, but on 20 March 1807, a fire destroyed the firm's warehouses in Rotten Road, resulting in a loss of about £40,000.

On 17 December 1827, a large banquet was organised by Johann Baptist Cramer and Ignaz Moscheles in his honour at the Hotel Albion.

Accompanying his body were three of his students: Johann Baptist Cramer, John Field and Ignaz Moscheles[citation needed].

[12] Of Clementi's playing in his youth, Moscheles wrote that it was "marked by a most beautiful legato, a supple touch in lively passages, and a most unfailing technique."

[15] Based on performance reports, scholars estimate that he composed approximately twenty symphonies in total during his life.

A description of Beethoven's regard for Clementi's music can be found in the testimony of his assistant, Anton Schindler, who wrote "He [Beethoven] had the greatest admiration for these sonatas, considering them the most beautiful, the most pianistic of works, both for their lovely, pleasing, original melodies and for the consistent, easily followed form of each movement.

Moscheles' edition of Schindler's biography quotes the latter as follows: "Among all the masters who have written for piano, Beethoven assigned to Clementi the very foremost rank.

He considered his works excellent as studies for practise, for the formation of a pure taste, and as truly beautiful subjects for performance.

Mozart, who wrote in a letter to his sister Marianne that he would prefer her not to play Clementi's sonatas due to their jumped runs, and wide stretches and chords, which he thought might ruin the natural lightness of her hand.

Carl Czerny also had the highest regard for Clementi's piano sonatas and used them successfully in his teaching of Franz Liszt.

Frédéric Chopin would often require his pupils to practice Clementi's preludes and exercises because of the exceptional virtues he attributed to them.

By a ministerial decree dated 20 March 2008, the Opera Omnia of Muzio Clementi was promoted to the status of Italian National Edition.

The steering committee of the National Edition consisting of the scholars Andrea Coen (Rome), Roberto De Caro (Bologna), Roberto Illiano (Lucca — President), Leon Plantinga (New Haven, Connecticut), David Rowland (Milton Keynes, UK), Luca Lévi Sala (Paris/Poitiers, Secretary, and Treasurer), Massimiliano Sala (Pistoia, Vice-President), Rohan H. Stewart-MacDonald (Cambridge, UK) and Valeria Tarsetti (Bologna).