The Art of Fingering on the Pianoforte: A Comprehensive and Comparative Study of Clementi’s Didactical Works Applied to Period and Modern Instruments

My research proposes a case study of Clementi’s didactical works (Progressive Sonatinas Op. 36, Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte Op. 42 with its Appendix Op. 43, and Gradus ad Parnassum Op. 44) focusing on fingerings – a subject that has been either taken for granted or overlooked in today’s scholarship, performance, and education, despite its vital contribution to the composer’s great renown in his time. Through practice-based analysis and contextualisation in relation to other didactical works accessible in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century England, I reconstruct an imaginary learning setting of Clementi’s time as the general framework of my research processes, implementing a hands-on approach for the scholarly treatment of early keyboard methods. By applying resulting fingerings to a relevant repertoire I re-evaluate Clementi’s pedagogy on a range of keyboard instruments and actions, thereby enriching historically informed performance with historically informed education.The following questions best summarise my research:

• Which are the rules underlying Clementi's fingerings and how do they relate to or differ from other composers' fingering systems?
• How do these differ on different piano actions and / or keyboards?
• How to apply fingerings on a selected repertoire and how could they be meaningfully integrated in a critical edition?
• How to perform fingerings?