Muzio Clementi was famous throughout his lifetime as both a composer and a virtuoso performer, appearing at the court of France and competing with Mozart in Vienna. His keyboard sonatas, over a hundred in number, were immensely popular and influential, and his legacy as a performer and teacher was of considerable importance in the development of piano technique. The sonatas composed at the beginning of the 1780s heard on this recording are about extending the limits of the piano and making an emotional impact. The Sonata in G minor, Op. 7, No. 3 is a fine example: the first and second movements are quite extraordinary for their cantabile legato lines while the third movement, with its exciting array of octaves, is full of fortissimos, sforzandos and exhilaration.