Who was the father of the piano?

Born in Rome on January 24, 1752, Clementi was the eldest son of a family of six siblings and his father was a silversmith. He was a composer, pianist, publisher and piano maker. His piano courses and sonatas developed early piano techniques and earned him the title "Father of the Piano".

Although he was born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England, where he was discovered to be musically gifted at an early age, and was sent to receive musical education at the age of seven. In 1766, he went to Dorset, England, to study the ancient piano, and in 1770, he gave his first piano recital, which was very well received by the audience, and this was the beginning of his success as a pianist. He soon became a famous pianist. In 1774 he moved to London and became conductor of the King's Theater.

In 1780-85 Clementi traveled around Europe as a pianist, visiting Germany, France, etc. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1781, in Vienna, at the invitation of Emperor Josef II, to entertain the Emperor and his guests, Clementi played and competed with Mozart in a competition in which the two great musicians were asked to improvise and perform their own compositions. The two great musicians were asked to improvise and perform their own compositions, which Clementi thought he would win, as Clementi, who came from England, was simply seen as a rival to "challenge the first master of the continent". Moreover, according to a recorded conversation between Mozart's close friend Johann Ladislav Dussek and Emperor Joseph II, who discussed the matter afterwards, they did not know who had won. In this competition, the judge was Emperor Joseph II of Austria, who was a real "Mozart fan", so he let Mozart win the competition. At that time, Clementi had already widely used legato, and this way of playing was different from that of Mozart, who had followed his predecessor's "use legato only where it is indicated", and it became the main stream of keyboard playing later on. Mozart was known to be a genius and a bully, and used to make fun of his defeated opponents without mercy, but he didn't seem to laugh after this match; he wrote several letters to his sister, saying: "Clementi has nothing but some technique! Some people think that Mozart had sour grapes; it is difficult to say, but in any case there is no doubt that Mozart felt threatened by Clementi's virtuosity. For twenty years after 1782 he lived in England playing the piano, composing music and teaching. He also started a piano manufacturing industry, but unfortunately his factory was destroyed in a fire in 1807, and after 1810 he stopped all playing and spent all his time composing and building pianos, and he was the first musician to distinguish between modern pianos and antique pianos. He died on March 10, 1832, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.