The Italian National Edition of the Complete Works of Muzio Clementi, directed by Roberto Illiano, was formally instituted in 2008. Its first volume, a critical edition of The Correspondence of Muzio Clementi by David Rowland (2010), is a major step forward, particularly valuable for its thoroughness and accurate cataloguing of both previously known and newly discovered letters. Building on the first but incomplete attempt made by Remo Giazotto in 2002, Muzio Clementi: epistolario 1781–1831 (Milan: Skira), this book introduces new evidence relating to many aspects of the composer's private life while generating many new insights into his role and importance within the contemporary European musical sphere. It also sheds light on aspects of Clementi's publishing activity and resolves numerous questions concerning important groups of letters, such as those relating to the Pleyel, Breitkopf & Härtel and Collard firms.
The second volume is a critical edition of the Concerto per cembalo e orchestra, Op.-sn [without number] 30, by the present writer (2012). Surviving in a single manuscript source, this work is the only known representative of a corpus of concertos that Clementi is likely to have produced during his performing career in London, and was probably written between 1789 and 1790. The concerto was not listed in Alan Tyson's catalogue of Clementi's works, but the new edition establishes a definitive attribution to the composer by showing that the concerto shares almost its entire keyboard part with the Sonata Op. 33 No. 3, published in Vienna by Artaria in 1794.
Currently in press is a third volume, a critical edition of the so-called Viennese Sonatas Opp. 7, 8, 9 and 10, edited by Rohan H. Stewart-MacDonald in collaboration with the present writer. These works were first published in Vienna and Lyon between 1782 and 1783, and the edition offers a comprehensive account of the sonatas’ different versions, including those in later reissues and manuscripts, that arose from the persistent cycles of adjustment and modification to which Clementi subjected the works over a period of about twenty years.
A fourth volume, edited by Massimiliano Sala and scheduled to be published early in 2017, includes the Symphonies No. 1 in C Major (Op.-sn 34; WO 32) and No. 4 in D Major (Op.-sn 37; WO 35). These symphonies, never published during Clementi's lifetime, were probably composed in conjunction with the establishment of London's Royal Philharmonic Society in 1813, as suggested by the numerous performances they received in the city between 1813 and 1824. They survive in incomplete autograph sources held by the British Library and the Library of Congress, and the edition has involved a strenuous effort to reconstruct the missing passages, replacing the numerous textural interventions of Alfredo Casella and Pietro Spada (editors of the works’ first modern editions) while striving to remain faithful to the original text.
I have recently embarked upon a still larger project: the compilation of a new catalogue of Clementi's works. Sponsored by Yale University during 2015–2016, and in preparation as Volume XV of the Complete Works of Muzio Clementi, the Thematic Catalogue with Updated Bibliography for each Work, Documents and Iconography Relevant to Muzio Clementi's Life involves a complete re-evaluation of the full range of sources relating to Clementi's output. This catalogue incorporates a number of recent discoveries and aims to offer a fresh perspective on the position of Clementi's works within the contemporary European publishing network.
Further information can be found at <www.muzioclementi.org> and <www.muzioclementi.com>.
