There have been several excellent issues of Clementi's piano music on period instruments, such as those by Immerseel (Accent, 3/87) and Katin (Athene, 12/93), which highlight the textural variety and diversity of registral colour in this repertoire. With this new disc, Hungarian pianist, Balazs Szokolay confirms Maria Tipo's view – eloquently expressed by her recent release (EMI, 2/94) – that the dramatic impact of Clementi's keyboard music can be significantly increased by the modern piano's greater dynamic capabilities.
After their competition in 1782 at the court of Emperor Joseph II, Mozart was dismissive of Clementi's talents, describing him as a ''mere mechanicus''. However, in addition to the sparkling, mechanical display of the D major and G major Sonatas, Szokolay also demonstrates Clementi's surprising expressive range. Try the second movement of the F sharp minor Sonata, which inspired a poem from the late-nineteenth-century poet, Fogazzaro. Here, Szokolay's sensitive, delicate touch, enhanced by Naxos's attractively bright, spacious recording, touchingly evokes this music's full, romantic richness.
Szokolay's meticulous precision and imaginative sublety are impressive throughout this disc, and those piano teachers (and students) who are looking for exemplary accounts of the six Sonatinas, Op. 36, need look no further. Ultimately, though, the B flat Sonata (Op. 24 No. 2) provides the climax of the programme. Szokolay's delightfully extrovert performance winningly portrays Clementi's showier side here, as the first movement's concerto-like contrasts give way to the second movement's improvisatory flow of ideas, to culminate in an engagingly vivacious finale. R1 '9509088'