# Scarlatti's piano sonatas



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Scarlatti was a Baroque-Classical transitional composer, right? I just listened to two sonatas, and I really like them! They sound a bit like Bach and a bit like Mozart; I do hope he wasn't forgotten till the 20th century like Vivaldi, who of course was also an Italian Baroque composer...do you like his works? What else do you have to recommend from this composer?


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## Bwv 1080

Well Scarlatti did not actually write any _piano_ sonatas and he died within a few years of Bach and Handel, which chronologically places him firmly in the Baroque. He wrote in the style galant which prefigured classical (Bach's Italian Concerto is also an example of this)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galant_music

Scarlatti was Italian by background, but spent his career in Spain and incorporated alot of Spanish influences in his music


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## Larkenfield

He's considered Baroque, but for me Scarlatti could be lighter in spirit, more cosmopolitan, experimental and progressive than Bach or Handel and isn't as easily defined as a Baroque composer, though he clearly lived within that period. He has qualities that I find sparkling, fresh & delightful, and he would often incorporate the life that was going on around him in his works, such as the influences of the Spanish guitar.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Bwv 1080 said:


> *Well Scarlatti did not actually write any piano sonatas* and he died within a few years of Bach and Handel, which chronologically places him firmly in the Baroque. He wrote in the style galant which prefigured classical (Bach's Italian Concerto is also an example of this)
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galant_music
> 
> Scarlatti was Italian by background, but spent his career in Spain and incorporated alot of Spanish influences in his music


What did he compose if that's the case? And what about the two examples I gave? They weren't originally piano sonatas?


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## Bwv 1080

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> What did he compose if that's the case? And what about the two examples I gave? They weren't originally piano sonatas?


Everything was written on a Harpsichord


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## Bulldog

Folks who like baroque music on piano tend to be confused.

To avoid any confusion or conflict, I think it's best to call them solo keyboard works.


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## Mandryka

Bwv 1080 said:


> Everything was written on a Harpsichord


I don't think so. For one thing, person he was writing for had some pianos and some of the sonatas seem to work very well on piano.


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## Mandryka

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> And what about the two examples I gave? They weren't originally piano sonatas?


I'm afraid there's no simple answer to your question.

For example, the second example, K1, comes from a book Scarlatti had published called "30 keyboard exercises" for an instrument called a "_gravicembalo_' Now _gravicembalo_ is ambiguous, it can refer to a piano or a harpsichord. However I think that this sonata benefits from the brilliance of a harpsichord. Would Scarlatti have written a piece like that if he were thinking piano? I doubt it.

The other sonata was never published, it was written specially for Scarlatti's employer, a princess. She had access to loads of instruments - pianos, harpsichords, clavichords. And the music can fit on many of them without much tinkering around. I can't hear anything in it which fits better on harpsichord than on piano.


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## Jokke

Daniel Barenboim explains about the Scarlatti sonatas played on piano :


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## CrunchyFr0g

He works rather well on guitar too


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## jegreenwood

I have a wonderful Scarlatti guitar recital by Narciso Yepes.


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## Mandryka

Well he wrote several sonatas for mandolin and keyboard, they're quite charming. A mandolin is a bit like a guitar isn't it?

Presumably you have to do a fair amount of shenanigans to get the keyboard music to fit on a guitar, I mean you've only got one hand to pluck with. The 380 in that clip takes a big step back in the transcription and gains nothing in the process as far as I can see, not even from the point of view of the melodies. Fun to play I imagine.


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## Bwv 1080

Mandryka said:


> Presumably you have to do a fair amount of shenanigans to get the keyboard music to fit on a guitar, I mean you've only got one hand.


Not too much - obviously every sonata does not work, but the textures of the sonatas transport better than,say, Back. In addition, living in Spain DS incorporated a lot of guitar textures in his music - you can hear, rasgueado-like passages in K501 for example.


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## Mandryka

That's interesting. Re Bach, have you heard this? Some people love it - though unfortunately not me.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Jokke said:


> Daniel Barenboim explains about the Scarlatti sonatas played on piano :


Barenboim is a very talented musician, he flames some opposition in Israel due to his leftist political stances (he even has Palestinian citizenship), but I like him.


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## Bwv 1080

Mandryka said:


> That's interesting. Re Bach, have you heard this? Some people love it - though unfortunately not me.
> 
> View attachment 121924


No, cannot find anything on Youtube either, though listening to his lute suite recordings, he is a find player


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## flamencosketches

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> Barenboim is a very talented musician, he flames some opposition in Israel due to his leftist political stances (he even has Palestinian citizenship), but I like him.


I admire Barenboim too, but more so as a conductor than as a pianist. He has a very fine sense of musicality and connects deeply with both the music he performs and his audience. I love watching interviews with him and his youtube videos where he talks about music that he loves. I won't speak on the situation in Israel (being an American), but it seems to me that Barenboim's stance is relatively level headed.

I am actually beginning to appreciate his pianism a bit more lately. He has a very good disc of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations on Erato. I'll check out this Scarlatti video when I go on break at work.


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## jegreenwood

Favorites:

On piano - Horowitz and Pletnev. I've been meaning to check out Sudbin on Tidal.
On harpsichord - Ross and Hantai.
Guitar - Yepes. I have some other guitar transcription, but for duos. That doesn't work as well for me. Luckily, Yepes has a 10 string guitar. (I would love to hear what Goren Sollscher would do with Scarlatti on his 11 string guitar.)


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## Mandryka

Thanks for mentioning Yepes, if I had heard it before, I’d forgotten, 

I was interested to hear this music played with such seriousness, objectivity and sobriety.

It makes me think of some keyboard players' approach to Scarlatti -- Francesco Cera, the last recording by Ralph Kirkpatrick, Colin Tilney even.


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## Mandryka

Bwv 1080 said:


> No, cannot find anything on Youtube either, though listening to his lute suite recordings, he is a find player


One guy I've started to explore is Paul Galbraith. I'm listening to his Louis Couperin most, but he's done some Bach


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