Purcell’s Dido and
Aeneas is only the most familiar
of musical responses to the story of
Dido, abandoned by Aeneas, in a narrative
most influentially presented in Book
IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, although
its elements considerably predated Virgil.
Before Purcell, Cavalli had put Dido
on the Venetian operatic stage in 1641,
using a libretto by Gian-Francesco Busenello,
who also wrote the libretto for Monteverdi’s
Orfeo, in his Didone.
Post-Purcell, Metastasio’s ‘drama-for-music’,
Didone abbandonata (1724), is
reputed to have been set by some sixty
different composers, beginning with
Domenico Sarro and including such figures
as Galuppi, Albinoni, Hasse, Porpora,
Jommelli, Paisiello and Mercadante.
And then, of course, there was Berlioz’s
Les Troyens. Painters, poets,
dramatists, novelists – all have re-imagined
the story of Dido and Aeneas again and
again. There is much fascinating information
on their work to be found in a book
edited by Michael Burden: A Woman
Scorn’d, Responses to the Dido Myth
(1998).
The volume edited by
Burden makes no mention, however, of
Clementi. Yet in the third of his Opus
50 sonatas Clementi included what is,
I believe, the only instrumental composition
to which he gave a programmatic title
– Didone abbandonata – scena
tragica. Insofar as this is
an instrumental work, he may have been
remembering the tenth of Tartini’s Opus
1 Violin sonatas, which also carries
the title Didone abbandonata,
and is also in G minor. Or perhaps he
was thinking of his sonata as related
(in idea rather than being in any sense
a transcription) of one of the settings
of Metastasio’s text, or even a purely
instrumental response to that text.
Whatever its precise genesis, it is
fair to say that what Clementi was trying
to create might reasonably be described
as ‘an opera without words’ in the sense
that Mendelssohn’s later piano pieces
seek to be ‘songs without words’.
Clementi’s sonata is
a fascinating, if flawed, piece. Its
brief first movement – marked largo
patetico e sostenuto – functions
like an overture. The music is densely
chordal, with a largely descending melodic
shape that finishes with a sense of
promising more than it has yet delivered
– at which point we are presumably intended
to imagine the raising of the curtain
in this mental theatre. The ensuing
allegro is by turns gently melancholy
and passionately disturbed, surely intended
as a musical representation of the conflicting
passions in the mind of the abandoned
queen as she moves to understand what
has happened to her and moves, of course,
towards eventual suicide. There’s a
discontinuity to the music in this movement,
an abruptness which doesn’t always satisfy
but for which one can see Clementi’s
reasoning. The adagio dolente which
follows is thoughtful and elegiac, harmonically
quite adventurous and full of sustained
pedal work which produces some quite
beautiful effects in this recording.
The final allegro (allegro agitato
e con disperazione it is marked)
is powerful stuff, expressive of Dido’s
inner rage and also, it seems to me,
of her final immolation. This is music
which clearly registers Clementi’s familiarity
with Beethoven’s piano sonatas, though
the comparison – inevitably – doesn’t
really do him any favours. But the fact
that the music falls short of Beethoven
(what doesn’t?) is no reason to deny
that it has real qualities of its own
and is well worth getting to know. Richard
Burnett plays it with sympathy and evident
understanding. I mean no disrespect
to him, however, if I say that I would
like to hear a seriously top-class pianist
tackle this piece. It could fit very
interestingly into the right recital
programme.
The other half of Burnett’s
programme consists of twelve short ‘Monferrinas’,
altogether slighter and far less demanding
technically. The Monferrina is a dance
in 6/8 time originating in the region
of Monferrato (sometimes referred to
as Montferrat in the English speaking
world) in Piedmont – where, incidentally,
some of the best spumante also originates;
the dance had something of a vogue in
early nineteenth-century London, where
it was sometimes known as the monfreda
or monfrina. Some listeners may be familiar
with Hummel’s Op.54 Variations for cello
and piano ‘Alla Monferina’. These twelve
examples by Clementi (the longest is
three and a quarter minutes long, the
shortest only one minute and twelve
seconds) are essentially parlour pieces.
For the most part they have charm and
vivacity on their side – even if none
of them achieve memorability.
The music on this CD
is interesting and Richard Burnett’s
performances contribute to the listener’s
enjoyment of it. Just as important,
however, is the instrument on which
it is played. What we are treated to
– and it is a treat – is the well-recorded
sound of a Grand Pianoforte, dated 1822,
by Clementi and Co. A piano, that is
to say, made by Clementi’s own company
and almost exactly contemporaneous with
the music which makes up Burnett’s programme.
It has a compass of six octaves; it
employs leather covered hammers and
still has its original strings. As Richard
Burnett explains in his booklet note
"the three pedals operate (from
left to right) keyboard shift to due
corde and una corde, sustaining and
harmonic swell". There are additional
strings which, when a damping bar is
raised, can be allowed to vibrate sympathetically
– this allows for some attractive and
atmospheric effects, well used (and
not overused) by Burnett. The instrument,
we are told, was restored by William
Dow in 1982. This present recording
was previously issued on a Saydisc LP
in, I think, 1983 or 1984. It well deserves
the present reissue. It should appeal
to all with a fondness for the surely
underrated Clementi or to those with
a special interest in the evolution
of the piano.
Glyn Pursglove
for details
Richard Burnett (piano) 
