SATURDAY, October 10, 2020 – 2:19 AM

(I knew nothing about this symphony and next to nothing about his music until this movement. I don’t his piano music. I teach one movement from one sonatina, and that’s the end of it. That’s not going to change. If something does not interest me, I don’t investigate. I don’t start digging until my interest is piqued. I was researching the history of “God Save the King”, which became “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. That lead me to a matter of trivia, that supposedly Clementi used this tune in the 2nd movement of his 3rd symphony. So I started listening. Surprise. I really like this!)

Clementi: Symphony No. 3 (GREAT NATIONAL SYMPHONY) in G major, age 72

• 0:03 I. Andante Sostenuto – Allegro Con Brio, G minor – G major: “God Save the King” is not easy to hear in this movement. It has a slow intro, then it goes into the typical sonata form of most 1st movement of this time period.
• 9:03 II. Andante Un Poco Mosso, C major: This is where “God Save the King” is really obvious, and it’s actually the main idea in the whole movement.
• 16:57 III. Minuetto (Allegretto), G major: Is he going to use “God Save the King” again? My guess was: Yes. But if it’s in hear, I have not hear it. I wonder if the audience was teased by now, wondering when he was going to use the tune again.
• IV. Finale (Vivace), G major: Again, you will hear “God Save the King”, and it’s especially obvious at the end.

Instrumentation:

We don’t know. All scores are reconstructions, and you can’t even find info on what instruments are playing.

When was this composed?

We don’t know. No one knows. It could have been earlier, so my date of 1824 is just a ball park figure. Clementi was born in 1752, just four years earlier than Mozart, 20 years after Haydn and 18 years before Beethoven. He is obscured by these giants, and there is a good bit of evidence to show that he was intimidated by both Mozart and Beethoven, thus his shyness about presenting his music to the world.

He live to the age of 80…

I did not know that. I didn’t know anything about him until tonight. But that was a long, long time to live in that era, almost like living to the age of 100 today.

Trombones…

There is some dispute about what Clementi actually wrote, but if the instrumentation I’m hearing is correct it’s rather advanced, so perhaps he really picked up the idea of writing for trombones from Beethoven.

There is a neat link HERE about the history of this symphony…

There is way too much to write about here, but it’s quite a fascinating story.