Domenico Scarlatti

[micrologus]

From Wikipedia

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (October 26, 1685 – July 23, 1757) was a Neapolitan composer who spent much of his life in Spain and Portugal. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style.

He most likely first studied under his father, the composer and teacher Alessandro Scarlatti; other composers who may have been his early teachers include Gaetano Greco, Francesco Gasparini, and Bernardo Pasquini, all of whom seem to have influenced his musical style.

Only a small fraction of Scarlatti's compositions were published during his lifetime; Scarlatti himself seems to have overseen the publication in 1738 of the most famous collection, his 30 Essercizi ("Exercises"). These were rapturously received throughout Europe, and were championed by the foremost English writer on music of the eighteenth century, Dr. Charles Burney.
The many sonatas which were unpublished during Scarlatti's lifetime have appeared in print irregularly in the two and a half centuries since. Scarlatti has, however, attracted notable admirers, including Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, Heinrich Schenker and Vladimir Horowitz. The Russian school of pianism has particularly championed the sonatas.
Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas are single movements, mostly in binary form, and are almost all intended for the harpsichord (there are four for organ, and a few where Scarlatti suggests a small instrumental group). Modern pianoforte technique owes much to their influence.[citation needed] Some of them display harmonic audacity in their use of discords, and also unconventional modulations to remote keys.
Other distinctive attributes of Scarlatti's style are the following:
The influence of Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) folk music. An example is Scarlatti's use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal inflections more or less alien to European art music. Also some of Scarlatti's figurations and dissonances are guitar-like.
A formal device in which each half of a sonata leads to a pivotal point, which the Scarlatti scholar Ralph Kirkpatrick termed "the crux", and which is sometimes underlined by a pause or fermata. Before the crux Scarlatti sonatas often contain their main thematic variety, and after the crux the music makes more use of repetitive figurations as it modulates away from the home key (in the first half) or back to the home key (in the second half).

See also: List of Solo Keyboard Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71iUAFFQ8ik&feature=related"]YouTube - Harpsichord Performance: Comparone Plays Scarlatti[/ame]

[Philidor]

Wow the Donald Rumsfeld of harpsichord playing.

[micrologus]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1j0nIEgQLA&NR=1"]YouTube - Domenico Scarlatti - Sonata in A Major[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqRXwy0Qvd4&feature=related"]YouTube - Domenico Scarlatti - Sonata K.208 in A Major[/ame]

[Héctor]

[micrologus]

This is how it's meant to be played ...



On harpsichord of course

[Héctor]

Scarlatti is a low tension cable...

[Melanti]

I have been enjoying the dazzling & delightful Pieter Jan Belder sets on Brilliant Classics..there's a real sprighly sensitivity here...very fine "doigté" fingering Technique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5zt...feature=relmfu

[Stlukesguild]

Actually... I was just listening to the Christian Zacharias set recommended to me by a Scarlatti fan:



Quite lovely.

[haydnguy]

Scarlatti - Marcelle Meyer (1954) - Sonate Kk 69