A COPIOUSLY COMPENDIOUS CLEMENTI
Melvyn M. Sobel | Freeport (Long Island), New York | 10/07/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This Katin CD of various Clementi sonatas, played on a superbly plangent and realistic fortepiano, and warmly recorded in a fine acoustic, is a pleasure to hear. No, more than this: It's a treat. So fine is it, you can almost feel Clementi breathing down your neck; so titillating the performance, you'll find you've been suddenly transported back to the early 1800's.
And the music is grand, too: A goodly collection of known and unknown sonatas--- stimulating and inventive--- to keep even jaded types, like me, chortling with pleasure. Katin's playing is exemplary, electric, yet, in the slow movements, tender. (And it's a tad difficult to be tender performing on a fortepiano--- the nature of the beast.)
Clementi (the "Mechanicus") makes a good show here, with Katin to thank.
[Running time: 74:35]"