F.X. Mozart & Clementi: Piano Concertos (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 3)

Featuring

Howard Shelley
Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen
Franz Xaver Mozart
Muzio Clementi

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Composer Biography

Franz Xaver Mozart, the younger surviving son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born just four months before his famous father's death.

Composer Biography

Franz Xaver Mozart traded under the name 'W A Mozart Jr' and emulated his father by undertaking a series of concert tours across Europe.

Notable Performances

Muzio Clementi famously took part in a piano duel with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna in December 1781, staged by Emperor Joseph II.

Composer Biography

Muzio Clementi, a versatile musician and composer, was 'discovered' and brought to England in 1767 by wealthy English MP Sir Peter Beckford, who 'bought him from his father for seven years'.

Critical Reception

Mary Novello, a researcher for a Mozart biography, found Franz Xaver Mozart burdened by the impossibility of living up to his father's legacy, which she felt 'damps the ardour of his musical works reducing them to mediocrity'.

Compositional Technique

Franz Xaver Mozart's piano concertos are described as 'sparkling, finely crafted works' that owe much to his father Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Viennese concertos.

Critical Reception

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a 'withering verdict' on Muzio Clementi's playing, calling him 'a mere mechanicus' with 'not a kreutzer's worth of taste or feeling', despite Clementi's skill with right-hand execution and 'passages in thirds'.