In 1781, Emperor Joseph II staged a Christmas Eve keyboard duel in Vienna between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a challenger most listeners have never heard of: Muzio Clementi. The emperor called it a tie, Mozart went home fuming, and this deep dive follows the man on the other side of that contest, from a church organist job in Rome at 14 to seven isolated years on Sir Peter Beckford’s Dorset estate practicing up to eight hours a day.

The episode traces Clementi’s transformation from touring virtuoso to publishing and piano-manufacturing mogul in London, including the 1807 warehouse fire, his acquisition of the English rights to Beethoven’s music, and his habit of editing Beethoven’s scores for amateur players on small square pianos. It also explains why a figure Beethoven kept on his own music stand ended up nearly invisible to history.

• Mozart’s letters calling Clementi a mere mechanic and a charlatan, versus Clementi’s praise of Mozart’s grace in slow movements
• How the opening of The Magic Flute overture echoes Clementi’s B-flat sonata, Op. 24 No. 2, and how Clementi quietly set the record straight
• Heavier actions, larger hammers, and expanded range: the piano design changes that made true legato possible
• Gradus ad Parnassum and the students it shaped, including John Field, whose nocturnes fed into Chopin
• Why 150 years of practice drills turned a founding member of the Philharmonic Society of London into a name kids associate with scales