Gradus ad Parnassum

Historical context

Clementi’s celebrated studies, “Gradus ad Parnassum,” Op. 44, are a series of 100 instructive studies for the pianoforte. This collection, dedicated to the Princess Wolkonska, was published by Ricordi in Milan in 1817. Some of these exercises had been published previously and were revised and extended for this collection, which contains canons and fugues in a freer style. As the book notes, these studies are “considered indispensable in the training of pianists.”

Clementi also published an appendix to the Gradus, containing 134 exercises, gavottes, gigues, and airs with variations, chiefly by other composers, to which he wrote preludes. Selections from the Gradus, for advanced students, have been edited with modern fingering by Karl Tausig. While Johann Baptist Cramer’s piano studies are noted to “excel the ‘Gradus’ of his teacher, Clementi, in combining beautiful musical ideas with systematic technical training,” Clementi’s original collection remains a cornerstone of pianistic development.

Drawn from John Denison Champlin & William Foster Apthorp (eds.), Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, Vol. 2 (1889); John Knowles Paine; Theodore Thomas; Karl Klauser (eds.), Famous Composers and Their Works (1891); Karl Friedrich Weitzmann, A History of Pianoforte-Playing and Pianoforte-Literature (1897) — public domain, archive.org.