Description
Book SynopsisThis book takes as its historical point of departure the radical appearance in 1779 of technically difficult keyboard music in a set of six sonatas (Op. 2) by Muzio Clementi. The difficult passages contained in this opus are unique amongst keyboard music published for a market that was understood at the time to consist almost entirely of female amateur keyboardists. Previously actively discouraged from practicing or improving their skills due to the restrictive ideologies in place, Clementi’s music increasingly affords female pianists a new kind of musical expression. Clementi and the woman at the piano: Virtuosity and the market for music in eighteenth-century London maps the social, musical, and gendered implications of technically difficult music and helps to underline important changes in Enlightenment culture and keyboard practice. Clementi’s activities initiated the now familiar and modern concepts of repetitive musical practice, the work-concept, virtuosity itself, and the division between amateur and professional. Additionally, Clementi promotes a radical new mode of expression for female pianists that is at first highly controversial but slowly gains acceptance due to a widespread promotion of his music, instruments, and methods. Clementi’s career is in many respects a perfect case study for the tensions between Enlightenment thinking and new Romantic ideologies.
Trade Review‘[I]n Erin Helyard’s revelatory (and unfailingly entertaining) monograph, we find a portrait of a visionary composer, performer, teacher, publisher, piano maker and entrepreneur whose influence was, and still is, as far from pernicious as one can imagine... it’s a story that proves not only thought-provoking but page-turning... Clementi and the woman at the piano will, I have no doubt, come to be seen as a major contribution not only to Enlightenment studies but to our understanding of the relationships between women, men, society, class, aesthetics and commerce in the context of a bourgeoning amateur music scene.’ Will Yeoman, Limelight
‘[A] welcome new feminist perspective on Clementi’s achievements.’ Benjamin Ivry, International Piano Magazine
‘The qualities of this book go beyond the history of music and musicology in the strictest sense. With finesse and sensitivity, Helyard, who knows the sources inside out, succeeds in linking the technical revolution spearheaded by Clementi with the evolving thinking regarding the social status of women and the image of the female forte-pianist.’
Translated from French: ‘Le mérite de ce livre va au-delà de la musicologie à proprement parler et de l’histoire de la musique. Avec finesse et sensibilité, Helyard, qui connaît fort bien les sources, réussit à établir un lien entre la révolution technique menée par Clementi et l’évolution des mentalités sur la question du statut des femmes dans la société et l’image désormais projetée par la forte-pianiste.’ Pierre Dubois, Dix-huitième siècle
Table of ContentsList of Musical Examples
List of Tables
List of Figures
Preface
Chapter 1: Clementi and the Enlightenment
Chapter 2: Mozart’s Insult and the Irritations of Virtuosity
Chapter 3: Keyboard Performance and Gender in Late Eighteenth-Century London
Chapter 4: Clementi’s “Black Joke”
Chapter 5: Male Theoria and Female Praxis
Chapter 6: Clementi in the Marketplace and the Conservatoire
Conclusion: Clementi’s Coin
Appendix: Ideological differences regarding keyboard practicing/music education in 36 conduct books and treatises, 1741-1838
Bibliography
