The two
Capriccios Op 34 of 1795 are not at all like their modest predecessor, Op 17. The new
Capriccios leave the impression of impassioned, whimsical improvisations abounding in various kinds of wide-ranging virtuoso passagework, much of it rather indeterminate in harmony. In the midst of this Clementi now and then interposes starkly contrasting bits of simple melody, served up with the sort of grandiloquent introductory gestures that were to become a staple commodity of nineteenth-century piano virtuosi.
from notes by Leon Plantinga © 2011
