LEARNING FROM THE TITLE PAGE:
CLEMENTI’S SONATINAS, OPUS 36

MIKE ZACHARY, D.M.A

When Muzio Clementi first published his famous sonatinas in 1797, [1] the title page contained the following information. In examining these few words, we can learn important information that will help us understand the sonatinas better.

Six Progressive Sonatinas
for the Piano Forte

Composed and Fingered by

Muzio Clementi

Opus 36

The Word Progressive
This title page presents interesting information for students learning these pieces. First, the sonatinas are progressive. This simply means that each sonatina gets a little harder. As a teacher, I find that motivated students can easily move from the sixth sonatina of this collection to one of the Mozart sonatas; yet the first sonatina is noticeably easier that the Mozart sonatas.

The Word Sonatina
The term sonatina itself means ‘little sonata.’ Students who have not yet explored the masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven may not realize that many sonatas are twenty, thirty, or forty pages long! Not only are many of these pieces long, they often contain music that is quite difficult to perform. To some students, sonatinas seem long because they consist of several pages; but they are certainly not long by comparison to many sonatas.

An easy way to think about a sonata is to think of it as a collection of pieces. In sonatas, each individual piece is called a movement. Most of the time, movements are such independent pieces that they could be played separately, and they would seem to be separate pieces. Most of the time, sonatas have three or four movements; but there are certainly sonatas that have one, two, or five movements. The history of the sonata might be compared to the history of the automobile: there have been many wonderful styles, but there have also been many profound changes. In the six sonatinas of Opus 36, five of them have three movements; but the last sonatina has only two movements.

The Pianoforte
Clementi’s title page also mentions that these sonatinas were written for the piano forte.[2] It is helpful to remember that the piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700, and the most prominent feature of this instrument was that it was touch sensitive. If you played harder, the piano sounded louder. If you played with less intensity, the piano sounded softer. In the Italian language, the word piano means ‘soft’ and the word forte means ‘loud.’ Because his newly invented instrument could play both soft and loud, Cristofori named it the pianoforte. If he had given it an English name, it would simply have been called the soft-loud.

Since the invention of the piano, it has been sometimes called the pianoforte, and it has sometimes been called the fortepiano. The name that is used most commonly now is simply piano.

But more than the name of the piano has changed! Early pianofortes were not nearly so large or as sturdy as our modern pianos. Though the standard piano now has eighty-eight keys, a range of seven octaves, early pianos were often much shorter. Because of their construction, they had a much different sound. They were lighter; their sound was more like that of a harpsichord or a clavichord, two instruments that preceded the pianoforte.

The Fingering
It is interesting that Clementi not only took credit for composing these sonatinas; he took credit for providing the fingering for them. In his day, he was a famous pianist, and I am confident that young students were grateful that the pieces were provided with fingering; and they may well have been pleased to know that the fingering had been provided by a famous performer.

You may be interested to know that the notation for fingering was different in Clementi’s day. Nowadays, piano fingering is shown as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, with the number one indicating the thumb. In Clementi’s day, the system for piano fingering was +, 1, 2, 3, and 4, with the + symbol indicating the thumb, the number 1 indicating what we not call the second finger, etc.

The Word Opus
The term opus is word that means ‘work.’ Composers typically publish their music. In many cases, the first work a composer publishes is titled Opus 1, the second work he publishes is titled Opus 2, etc. The term Opus 36 identifies this collection of six sonatinas as Clementi’s 36th publication; and it appeared in 1797.

Conclusion
Nicholas Temperly noted that “the sonatinas, Op. 36, are the one work of Clementi’s…that has survived through all the years since his own time. They remain a standard work for beginners, and their charm is still fresh.” [3] And Leon Plantinga states, “Almost anyone who has studied the piano in the Western world during the past half century knows one or more of the Sonatinas, and these compositions alone are probably responsible for the impression most contemporary musicians have of Clementi. Surely it is a tribute to their quality and usefulness that after one and three-quarters centuries the Sonatinas still perform admirably the function for which Clementi intended them.” [4]

Though it is helpful to understand the title page of these sonatinas, greater joy comes from exploring and performing them. These sonatinas have remained popular with good reason; they are well-written masterpieces that help young pianists grow in their art. Though these sonatinas first appeared during the year that George Washington left the White House and John Adams became the second President of the United States, they have retained a timeless appeal and are still performed by pianists all over the world.