Muzio Clementi

Italian/English composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832).
He was born four years before Mozart and died five years after Beethoven. His long life allowed him not only to witness the transition from the late Baroque to the Romantic period as a composer, and from the harpsichord to the pianoforte as a pianist and pianomaker, but also to contribute substantially to this progress, the father of the modern piano sonata. Born in Rome in 1752 he found a new home in London in 1770 and became English. Many saw him as the man who paved the way for Beethoven's piano sonatas.