SCARLATTI SONATAS - Chandos

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SCARLATTI SONATAS More questions hang over Domenico Scarlatti than over almost any other composer of importance in the history of music. Of his personal life next to nothing is known; and of the external events in his career the paradox is that we have more information about his 20-year period in Rome and Lisbon as a composer of his less characteristic church works, operas and court cantatas (though the actual music of these remains largely unknown or has been lost) than of his longer sojourn in Spain from 1729 as music-master to princess (later queen) Maria Barbara, for whom he wrote the 500 or so keyboard sonatas on which his fame rests, and which constitute one of the main foundations of modern keyboard literature. It is not known when he composed these sonatas (of which no autographs exist and only 42 were published in his lifetime). The theory that the majority date from 1752, when a court scribe began copying the collections which are our principal source, is in the highest degree improbable: Scarlatti is unlikely to have waited over 20 years before writing pieces for his royal pupil or to have left a gap of over a decade after publishing thirty sonatas (Essercizi) in 1738, more particularly since we learn from his sole surviving letter that in 1752 he was already in poor health. Nor is it altogether clear for what kind of instrument he was writing. All except a few of the simpler sonatas that may have been intended for the early Florentine fortepiano (of which five existed in Spanish royal residences) were unquestionably for harpsichord; but 28 sonatas demand the note G in alt, which was found only on Spanish-built instruments—all of which, however, had but a single manual, thus limiting changes of tone-colour. (The absence of this high G from the Kirckman harpsichord used here has necessitated modifying two notes in sonata 380 and one in 551.) It is from internal musical evidence that we have to build up an image of Scarlatti's personality. His fascinated response to the heady impact of the colourful customs and dances of the Spanish people is plain to see in his adoption of Spanish dance rhythms (e.g. the jota of 381) and harmonies (note the Phrygian cadence in the first line of 27), imitations of castanets and mandolines (in 141) or the scrunch of rasgueado guitar chords (in 380 and 141), and in his impressions of street activities such as the procession portrayed in 380, with its trumpet and horn fanfares, drums and steady onward march. His equal delight in pure keyboard virtuosity—he himself was a dazzling performer, as his English disciple Thomas Roseingrave recalled with awe—is manifest in the unprecedented technical demands he made, including rapid repeated notes (141), hurtling descents or wide leaps for the left hand (381 and 551 respectively) and hand-crossing (141 and 27, the left hand in the latter making two-octave hops over semiquaver movement suspensions in the right hand). The unorthodoxy of Scarlatti's mind is shown in the boldness of his modulations (as in 550), which are often enharmonic and frequently lead him, at least momentarily, into such outlandish tonalities that a hypothesis of some system of equal temperament would seem justified—yet there are three keys in which he wrote no sonatas and four in which there are only two. Sonatas 318 and 319 form the sole pair in F sharp major, and each (particularly the latter) pursues so tortuous a course that the keysignature keeps changing, presenting the player with a veritable thicket of sharps and flats. Similarly varying key signatures are found in the remarkable sonata 264, whose modulations are so numerous and bewildering as to cause the listener to lose his bearings. Such quickwitted teasing of the ear—like that also when, after a pause, he sets off again in an unexpected key (as in 141)—was a deliberate game of Scarlatti's. In the preface to his Essercizi he had warned the public not to "expect any profound Learning, but rather an ingenious Jesting with Art"; and a favourite jest of his (best exemplified here in 319) was to dwell, as if improvising, on repetitions of a short figure, altering notes one by one in the harmony before darting off in an unforeseen direction—rather like an expert footballer dribbling a ball. This mental agility may also be seen in the great stylistic contrasts between the 4 5
TM SCARLATTI SONATAS STEREO CD-SAR 27 SCARLATTI SONATAS—Maggie Cole Harpsichord by Jacob Kirckman, London 1756 1 Sonata Kk 380 in E maj [5'54"] 2 Sonata Kk 381 in E maj [3'26"] 3 Sonata Kk 27 in B min [3'45"] 4 Sonata Kk 446 in F maj [4'54"] 5 Sonata Kk 141 in D min [4'26"] 6 Sonata Kk 550 in Bb maj [4'52"] 7 Sonata Kk 551 in Bb maj [4'05"] Harpsichord by Adlam Burnett after Ruckers, Antwerp 1638 8 Sonata Kk 263 in E min [6'03"] 9 Sonata Kk 264 in E maj [5'27"] 10 Sonata Kk 318 in F sharp maj [4'16"] 11 Sonata Kk 319 in F sharp maj [3'43"] 12 Sonata Kk 417 in D min [4'44"] Total duration: 55'35" SCARLATTI SONATAS—Maggie Cole CD-SAR 27 Maggie Cole (Kirckman and Ruckers Harpsichcords) AMON RA is a trade mark of © SAYDISC RECORDS, THE BARTON, INGLESTONE COMMON, BADMINTON, S.GLOS. GL9 1BX, ENGLAND. Fax: +(0)1454 299 858 E-Mail: Saydiscrecords@ aol.com Website: www.saydisc.com Made in Great Britain CD-SAR 27
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Page 3: sonatas (even in the present small

SCARLATTI SONATAS - Chandos

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