Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SONATA 513
home to the hearer by the singular practice of
repeating tliem consecutively as they stand, often
several times over ; in respect of which it Is
worth' remembering that his position in relation
to his audience was not unlike that of an orator
addressing an uncultivated mob. The capacity
for appreciating grand developments of structure
was as undeveloped in them as the power of
following widely spread argument and conclusion
would be in the mob. And just as the moborator
makes his most powerful impressions by
short direct statements, and by hammeiing them
in while still hot from his lips, so Scarlatti
drove his points home by frequent and generally
identical reiterations ; and then when the time
came round to refer to them again, the force of
the connection between distant parts of the same
story was more easily grasped. The feeling that
he did this with his eyes open is strengthened
by the fact that even in the grouping of the
reiterations there is commonly a perceptible
method. For instance,, it can hardly be by
accident that at a certain point of the movement,
after several simple repetitions, he should frequently
resort to the complication of repeating
several small groups within the repetition of
large ones. The following example is a happy
illustration of his style, and of his way of
elaborating such repetitions :
IrnqTMsmim, m
d=!z
It must not be supposed that he makes a law
of this procedure, but the remarkably frequent
occurrence of so curious a device is certainly
suggestive of conscious purpose in structural
treatment. [It is only right to point out the
recognised custom of repeating phrases on the
harpsichord with a change of registration, which
may account in some measure for the habit
here referred to.] The result of this mode is
that the movements often appear to be crowded
with ideas. Commonly the features of the
opening bars, which in modern times would be
held of almost supreme importance, serve for
very little except to determine the character of
the movement, and do not make their appearance
again. On the other hand, he cariies
the practice before referred to, of making the
latter part of each half of the movement correspond,
to an extraordinary pitch, and with
perfect success ;
for he almost invariably adopts
the key distribution of binary form in its main
outlines ; and though it would not be accurate
to speak of such a thing as a second subject
'
in his sonateis, the impression produced by his
distribution of repetition and the clearness of
his ideas is sufficient, in his best movements, to
give a general structural efieot very similar to
complete binary form on a small scale. In order
to realise to what extent the processof recapitulation
is carried by him, it will be as well to
consider the outline of a fairly characteristic
sonata. That which stands fifteenth in the
easily available edition of Breitkopf & Hartel ^
commences with eight bars only in E minor ;
the next forty-six, barring merely a slight and
unimportant digression, are in G major. This
concludes the first half. The second half begins
with reference to the opening figures of the
whole and a little key digression, and then a
characteristic portion of. the second section of
the first half is resumed, and the last thirtyfour
bars of the movement are a recapitulation
in E minor of the last thirty-five of the first
half, the three concluding bars being condensed
*
into two.
In many respects his principles of structure
and treatment are altogether in the direction
of modem ways, and alien to fugal principles.
That vital principle of the fugue—the persistence
of one principal idea, and the interweaving
of it into every part of the structure
appears completely alien to Scarlatti's disposition.
He very rarely wrote a fugue ; and when he
did, if it was successful that was less because it
was a good fugue than because it was Scarlatti's.
The fact that he often starts with imitation
between two parts is unimportant, and the
merest accident of association. He generally
treats his ideas as concrete lumps, and disposes
them in distinct portions of the movement,
> It is also the flfteenth in the Eserdzii ' ' j in Pauer's edition it
is No. 18 ; in the Trdsop dea FiaDlstes,' No. 19 ; and occurs on p. 22
of Hoseingrave's second volume. It has not yet appeared in Signer
Longo's complete edition.
2l