master’s predilection for them is well known.  The world seldom renders full justice to men who prepared the way for greater than themselves; Pachelbel, Boehm, and Buxtehude, the immediate predecessors of Bach, and, again, Emanuel Bach, to whom Haydn was so indebted, and whose works were undoubtedly studied by Beethoven, are notable examples.  This is, of course, perfectly natural:  the best only survives; but musicians who take serious interest in their art ought, from time to time, to look back and see how much was accomplished and suggested by men who, in comparison with their mighty contemporaries and successors, are legitimately ranked as second-rate.  Among such, Clementi holds high place.  Beethoven over-shadowed the Italian composer; but the harsh judgment expressed by Mozart[77] has contributed not a little, we imagine, to the indifference now shown to the Clementi sonatas.[78] The judgment was a severe one; but Otto Jahn relates how Clementi told his pupil Berger that, “at the period of which Mozart writes, he devoted his attention to brilliant execution, and in particular to double runs and extemporised passages.”  And, again, Berger himself was of opinion that the sonata selected for performance by Clementi at the memorable contest with Mozart in presence of the Emperor Joseph the Second (December 1781), was decidedly inferior to his earlier compositions of the same kind.  The sonata in question was the one in B flat (B. & H., No. 61; Holle, No. 37), of which the opening theme commences in the same manner as the Allegro of the Overture to the Magic Flute.  Mozart suffered much from the predominant Italian influence at court, and the “like all the Italians” in the letter just mentioned shows, to say the least, a bitter spirit.  But the letter was a private one, probably hastily written.  The judgment expressed was formed from an inferior work; in any case, it must not be taken too seriously.  Mozart, by the way, was not the only composer who failed to render justice to his contemporaries.

Clementi’s sonatas may be roughly divided into three classes.  Some he wrote merely for the display of technique, while some were composed for educational purposes.  But there remain others in which his heart and soul were engaged, and in these he reaches a very high level.  Our classification is a rough one, for often in those which we consider his best, there is plenty of showy technique.  With the exception of Mozart’s sonata in C minor, and Haydn’s “Genziger” and “London” sonatas, both in E flat, also some of Rust’s, of which we shall soon have something to say, there are, to our thinking, none which in spirit come nearer to Beethoven than some of Clementi’s.  Mr. E. Dannreuther, in his article on the composer in Sir George Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, justly remarks “that a judicious selection from his entire works would prove a boon.”