During his long, energetic life Ignaz Joseph Pleyel distinguished himself as a composer, publisher and piano manufacturer. His distinctive musical language, combining Haydn’s structural sophistication with the clarity, elegance and lyricism of the Italian style he so admired, made him the most popular composer in Europe. Although many works eventually slipped into obscurity, successful revivals of his compositions in modern times have served to remind us of the central place he occupied in the musical world of his time. Audio samples are contained in the text: just tap to listen while you read.
About the Author
A senior lecturer in Musicology at the University of Auckland, Dr Allan Badley is an internationally renowned specialist in late eighteenth-century Viennese music whose publications include several hundred scholarly editions of works by major contemporaries of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He co-founded the Hong-Kongbased publishing house Artaria Editions in 1995, which is now regarded as the leading specialist publisher in its field. His own editions have featured in over fifty critically acclaimed recordings on the Naxos label.