Pietro Domenico Paradies

Pietro Domenico Paradies was an Italian composer, harpsichordist and music teacher, most prominently known for a composition popularly entitled “Toccata in A”, which is, in other sources, the second movement of his Sonata No. 6.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Pietro Domenico Paradies.

From the period sources

Pietro Domenico Paradies, also known as Paradisi, was a dramatic composer and harpsichord-player, a pupil of the esteemed Porpora, according to A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1900). After bringing out operas in Italy, he relocated to London in 1747, where he spent many years as a harpsichord or pianoforte teacher, later returning to Italy in his advanced years, as noted by the Dictionary of Music (1896). His opera Fetonte, produced in London in 1747, was apparently not a success, leading him to focus on teaching (Dictionary of Music, 1908).

Paradies’s “12 Sonate di gravicembalo,” published in London in 1746, were significant. Muzio Clementi, a celebrated pianist, diligently studied the works of Paradies, alongside those of Handel, Bach, and Scarlatti, to perfect his taste and fingering, as reported in Biographie universelle des musiciens (1837, Vol. 2). Paradies also taught the elder Thomas Linley in harmony, who would later acquire Garrick’s share in the Drury Lane Theatre (Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1886). His clavier sonatas are considered by Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1905) to be “probably the best examples” of the two-movement form, distinguished by their “grace and sincerity.”