Clementi: Sonatas and Preludes

Most young pianists encounter Muzio Clementi through his pedagogical Sonatinas, simple, bright and transparent little sonatas, tuneful but intellectually undemanding. But there was another side to the composer, publisher and piano maker, seen through the sonatas that dominate this Clementi anthology by the South Korean pianist Ilia Kim. Maybe not in the early Op2 No2, which abounds in scales arpeggios and a light-fingered Rococo temperament. Certainly, though, in the later ones dating from the period between 1782 and 1802.

Kim evokes the more expansive thought process of the Op7 No3, finds manicured anguish in the Op13 No6 – a more troubled expressiveness than most Clementi – and the Mozartian operatic flare in Op40 No3.

The mood is refreshed mid-disc by two of his musical character skits, miniature preludes that caricature Haydn and Mozart respectively.