Ludwig van Beethoven is arguably one of the most original composers who ever lived. His composing career began in the last decade of the 18th century and ended with his death in 1827, and thus spanned from the Classical to the Romantic period. In his youth, he studied under F. Joseph Haydn, one of the greatest Classical composers; in his maturity, he anticipated the Romantic style which was later fully realized in the works of Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz and Chopin, among others. Although Beethoven is rightfully acknowledged as a brilliant innovator, he was not without his influences. The goal of this research is to establish the influence of a particular composer, the Italian pianist and composer Muzio Clementi, on Beethoven's keyboard compositions.
Clementi was Beethoven's contemporary; though he was born in 1852 and was therefore about a generation older than Beethoven, he outlived the younger man, dying in 1832. He moved to England at a young age and completed his musical education there in 1766 (Randel 107). For many years, he toured extensively throughout Europe and Russia, famous as both a pianist and composer (Randel 107). In addition, he established a music publishing company in England, which exists to the present day as Collard and Collard (Randel 107). Plantinga notes that "during [Clementi's] lifetime, he was certainly more famous than Mozart, and his reputation in European music was probably exceeded only by that of Haydn and Beethoven" (xi).
Nevertheless, Clementi is almost unknown to general audiences today, and his works are not performed nearly as often as those of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, even though his output includes symphonies, overtures, and more than 100 piano sonatas and other piano pieces; furthermore, he produced highly respected pedagogical works and a multi-volume collection of piano etudes entitled Gradus ad Parnassum, completed in the middle of 1826 (Randel 107). Plantinga lame...