Nikolai Demidenko, piano
Hyperion CDA66808
Recorded at Snape Maltings, December 1994
68 minutes
Anyone who knows Clementi chiefly through the little sonatinas assigned to piano students may be startled by this recording. The four sonatas chosen by Nikolai Demidenko are ambitious, dramatic works that place Clementi not merely between Mozart and Beethoven but at the beginning of nineteenth-century Romantic pianism.
The program opens with the B-flat-major Sonata, Op. 24 No. 2, the work Clementi played during his famous 1781 contest with Mozart. Its opening idea later resurfaced, rather conspicuously, in Mozart’s overture to The Magic Flute. Demidenko does not turn the resemblance into a historical footnote. His firm rhythms and exceptionally clear articulation give the music an identity of its own, while the flowing finale reveals Clementi’s formidable understanding of the keyboard.
The F-sharp-minor Sonata, Op. 25 No. 5—also published as Op. 26 No. 2—is the emotional center of the disc. Here Clementi’s music darkens considerably. The first movement alternates restless passagework with sudden accents and harmonic surprises; the slow movement possesses a melancholy lyricism that anticipates John Field and even Chopin. Demidenko gives it weight without making it ponderous. His tone is full but carefully controlled, and his quiet playing has remarkable concentration.
The two Op. 40 sonatas show Clementi at his most forward-looking. The B-minor Sonata, Op. 40 No. 2, begins with an ominous slow introduction before erupting into music of unmistakably Beethovenian force. Its unusual structure, abrupt changes of mood and exposed recitative-like passages reveal a composer willing to push the sonata beyond polite Classical proportions. Demidenko responds with commanding power, but he is equally persuasive when the music withdraws into its stranger, more desolate regions.
The D-major Sonata, Op. 40 No. 3, is brighter and more conventional on the surface, though its spacious first movement and richly voiced slow movement continually look toward Beethoven and Schubert. Demidenko’s wide tonal range is particularly effective here. He can give Clementi’s brilliant passagework real physical excitement, then reduce the sound to a finely shaded whisper without losing the musical line.
Compared with Horowitz, Demidenko is less inclined to reshape the music around his own personality. His tempos and phrasing feel considered rather than spontaneous, and he avoids using sheer volume as a substitute for drama. Yet these are hardly cautious performances. The faster music has tremendous energy, while the slow movements carry a seriousness that overturns the old picture of Clementi as a gifted but superficial manufacturer of keyboard exercises.
Hyperion’s recording is natural and well balanced, allowing Demidenko’s refined gradations of touch to register without placing the piano unnaturally close to the listener.
This is an unusually persuasive Clementi recital. Demidenko acknowledges the music’s Classical discipline while revealing the turbulent Romantic imagination already pressing against it. For listeners wondering why Beethoven, Field and later pianists took Clementi so seriously, this album supplies a compelling answer.
Verdict: A powerful introduction to Clementi’s mature piano music and one of Nikolai Demidenko’s most rewarding recordings.
