Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1124

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his art, nor to make him disregard his high calling as an artist. By assiduous practice he was always striving to perfect his skill as a pianist; and, in the course of this period, he produced many of his ablest works, and wrote his introduction to the art of playing the pianoforte, the valuable influence of which has been proved in the many admirable players that have been formed upon its principles. The bankruptcy of the firm of Longman & Broderip in 1800, occasioned a severe loss to Clementi, to repair which, by the advice of his commercial friends, he took the principal share in their establishment, and became a music- publisher and pianoforte manufacturer. From this time, except in the case of professional pupils, he entirely gave up teaching, determining to apply himself to the consideration of improvements in the construction of his instrument, in which he was so peculiarly successful as to raise up the high character of his house, which his partner, Mr. Collard, maintains at the present time. In 1802 Clementi commenced a professional tour, upon which he was longer absent from England than at any time after his first arrival in this country. With his pupil, John Field, he visited Paris and Vienna, and then went to St. Petersburg. Returning to Germany, he appeared, with the success which everywhere attended him, at the chief capitals, and went a third time to Vienna. There, through the misrepresentation of ill-judging friends, Beethoven and he were led each to expect such courteous advances from the other, that both were offended at not receiving them; the two, therefore, were never introduced, and though they not unfrequently dined at the same table in a public room, they neither forgave the slight each one thought he suffered, nor ever spoke to one another. At Berlin, Clementi married the daughter of a poor cantor of St. Nicholas' church, and went with her to his native country, which he had not seen for seven-and-thirty years. Mature as was his age, he was passionately attached to his young wife, whose beauty was remarkable; and he felt severely her death, which occurred within a year of their marriage, in childbirth. He returned to Berlin to place the infant under the care of his wife's relations. There he met with Berger, whom he accepted as a pupil; and, to dissipate his grief in changeful excitement, travelled with him in 1805 again to St. Petersburg, resting at every principal town through which they passed. After this he once more visited Vienna, and was called from thence to Italy by the death of his brother, which necessitated his presence to conclude the arrangements of the family affairs. The troubled state of Europe at this time made it impossible for Clementi to leave his native land before 1810, when he finally returned to England. In 1811 he contracted a second marriage, which produced him several children. He now almost entirely seceded from public life, but ceased not his artistic labours. The formation of the Philharmonic Society in 1813, created the opportunity, which had not before existed in England, for producing orchestral compositions; Clementi was an original member of the society, and he wrote several symphonies—one as late as the year 1824—which were played at the Philharmonic concerts. His great work, "Gradus ad Parnassum," was the occupation of some years; it was published about the year 1818, and soon became a class-book for the pianist, and a study for the composer in every music-school in Europe. He received a cruel shock in his extreme old age, from the accidental death, by fire-arms, of his eldest son. On the 17th December, 1827, the musicians of London, with J. B. Cramer and Moscheles at their head, gave a dinner at the Albion tavern, in honour of Muzio Clementi, the father of the pianoforte. On this interesting occasion, the wonderful octogenarian was persuaded to play, when every one of the large assembly was as delighted as astonished at the freshness of his powers evinced, not only in the marvellous finish of his mechanism, but in the spontaneous beauty of his improvisation.

Clementi's playing has left a more lasting impression than that of almost any other executant, since the merits of his style have been handed down, through his many distinguished pupils, to the present generation. Of these pupils, the first in consideration are J. B. Cramer and John Field, both of London; and only less eminent than these were Reuner of St. Petersburg; Klengl. of Dresden; and Berger of Berlin, the master of Mendelssohn. As a composer, Clementi may be said to have done for the pianoforte what Haydn did for the orchestra, by appropriating to it, in the sonata, the grand principles of musical construction which the founder of modern instrumental music developed in the symphony. He was a master of all the resources of counterpoint, with a complete grasp of the powers of modern harmony; and, besides the depth of character resulting from this knowledge, his music is distinguished by energy, fire, and intense passion; tenderness and melodious grace, however, the qualities one would most expect in the writings for his instrument, of an artist whose playing was especially signalized by these points of style, are rarely to be found in his compositions. He wrote no less than a hundred and six sonatas for the pianoforte—some of them with accompaniment for other instruments—besides many works of less extensive form, and his orchestral symphonies. The grandest example of his genius, and the one in which all his best characteristics are combined, is the sonata called "Didone Abbandonata." His extempore playing was such as could only have resulted from the union of his perfections as a composer and as an executant—rich in the fanciful and elaborate development of ideas, it proved at once the mind quick in invention, and the finger ready to give utterance to the thought. Upon the whole, few musicians have exerted greater present, and more lasting influence than Muzio Clementi.—G. A. M.

CLEMENTI, Prospero, born about the commencement of the sixteenth century at Reggio; died in 1584. He was one of the finest sculptors of his day. Algarotti calls him the Correggio of his art.

CLEMENTONE. See Bocciardo.

CLENARD or CLEYNAERTS, Nicholas, a famous Brabantian grammarian, whose Greek grammar, edited by Vossius and others, was long in use. Died in 1542.

CLENNELL, Luke: this painter, the son of a farmer at Ulgham, near Morpeth, Northumberland, was born on the 30th March, 1781. At a very early age he exhibited a decided tendency to art. His schoolboy's slate was covered with caricatures, which flowed over and submerged his arithmetic. He was taken from school—the pedagogue entertaining rather mean notions of his abilities—and apprenticed to his uncle, a tanner. But the tanyard, no more than the farmyard, could quench his persistent love of art. He was caught caricaturing his uncle's customers. It was thought vain to struggle longer with the predilections of one so incorrigible—so incurable. He was apprenticed to Bewick the wood engraver, and soon became known as one of Bewick's most assiduous and promising pupils. Having served out his indentures, he removed to London in 1804, and married the daughter of Charles Warren the engraver. The fame he had already acquired supplied him with as much work as he could execute. Among many other things he engraved the illustrations to Falconer's Shipwreck and Rogers' Poems, after drawings by Stothard. The artist-like character of his work became generally recognized, and Clennell was gradually induced to abandon the graver for the brush. He entered as a candidate for the prize offered by the British Institution for the best picture of the "Final Charge of the Guards at Waterloo." Almost to his own surprise he succeeded and received the guerdon, one hundred and fifty guineas. In 1814 he was commissioned to paint a picture in commemoration of the entertainment given by the city of London to the allied sovereigns. It is believed that the anxieties this entailed upon him, the difficulties he experienced in procuring the requisite portraits, and his own doubts and fears about satisfying those he painted, fairly undermined his reason. He worked away manfully, however—had completed a first sketch of his subject, and was full of arrangements for carrying it further, when, with an awful suddenness, his brain gave way, and for ever. He died in a lunatic asylum on the 9th April, 1840. He had considerable genius, great facility of composition, and very dexterous execution. His best work is perhaps his "Day after the Fair," being excellent in colour and rustic character. His "Market Boats at Brighton" received great admiration. His power as a landscape painter is amply exhibited in his work on the "Border Antiquities."—W. T.

CLEOMBROTUS, son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta. After the death of his brother Leonidas in the famous battle of Thermopylae, 480 b.c., Cleombrotus was made regent for Plistarchus, the infant son of that prince, and put himself at the head of the forces which, at the time of the battle of Salamis, occupied and fortified the isthmus of Corinth. He died the same year, and was succeeded in the regency by his son Pausanias.—J. T.

CLEOMBROTUS I., twenty-third of the family of the