# Do you like Domenico Scarlatti's piano sonatas?



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I get they can sort of sound repetitive but I think they are very serious pieces of music; a truly wonderful oeuvre that any composer of that age would be proud of. Did he have a big influence on the Bach siblings at all?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It took me a while - I think because they were somehow not what I was expecting - but, yes, I love them. I don't think they sound the same really. Also, I'm not sure I can see who was influenced by them but I don't really know the solo keyboard music of the Bach sons or other composers of the period.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

beetzart said:


> Did he have a big influence on the Bach siblings at all?


Never seen any evidence to suggest that he did


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

The Italian musicologist Federico Celestini has demonstrated the influence of Scarlatti on C.P.E. Bach's "Prussian" and "Württemberg" Sonatas from the 1740s. Bach had studied Scarlatti's Essercizi sonatas whose characteristic features show up in Bach's sonatas. Among Scarlatti's new technical features found in the Bach sonatas are alternating distribution of notes to the two hands, chords with the accumulation of many notes, passages in sixths and thirds or octaves in one hand, double trills, and trills on the final note at the end of a piece. Celestini also believes that Haydn, through studying C.P.E Bach sonatas, may have learned to apply certain keyboard techniques of Scarlatti.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> The Italian musicologist Federico Celestini has demonstrated the influence of Scarlatti on C.P.E. Bach's "Prussian" and "Württemberg" Sonatas from the 1740s. Bach had studied Scarlatti's Essercizi sonatas whose characteristic features show up in Bach's sonatas. Among Scarlatti's new technical features found in the Bach sonatas are alternating distribution of notes to the two hands, chords with the accumulation of many notes, passages in sixths and thirds or octaves in one hand, double trills, and trills on the final note at the end of a piece. Celestini also believes that Haydn, through studying C.P.E Bach sonatas, may have learned to apply certain keyboard techniques of Scarlatti.


Ah yes, I mentally jumped over the word "siblings" The question which I was thinking about was whether they influenced the father.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2018)

I like them a lot, but particularly when transcribed for guitar. Whenever I listen to them played on a keyboard instrument they tend to sound a bit too 'safe' in comparison to other keyboard music of the era based on the interpretations I've heard. There's something I enjoy more in the guitar versions.... 




This one in particular works really well on guitar


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Did Domenico Scarlatti ever have a fortepiano? In my learning years, the sonatas were considered harpsichord music but I loved them and played them on the piano anyway. The first thing for keeners to understand is the groupings within the extraordinary number of sonatas (c. 544) -- the Essercizi as Rick Riekert noted, the sonata pairs, the changes in style over time. Scarlatti had an unusual gig at the Spanish royal court, where he had subsidised time to compose but stayed in a "narrow" sonata groove to supply the empress, a fine keyboardist. In his early career in Italy he had composed operas and other works as did his father Alessandro, but Spain was a different journey for him both musically and personally.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Ah yes, I mentally jumped over the word "siblings" The question which I was thinking about was whether they influenced the father.


Bach scholars Robert Marshall and Peter Williams have argued for Scarlatti's influence on the Goldberg Variations, which for Bach represented a gathering together of progressive contemporary styles and set unprecedented standards of virtuosity. There is nothing like the devilish hand-crossings, extreme fioritura, passages in thirds, trills in inner parts, rapid arpeggios and runs, etc. in any of Bach's other keyboard music. According to Marshall, such demanding and idiomatic keyboard writing at this level of difficulty can be found in the works of only one other composer of the time: Domenico Scarlatti. Peter Williams believes the Goldberg may have been in part a response to the "fabulous musicianship and playing technique" of Scarlatti's Essercizi.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Did Bach know the Essercizi?

Are the Essercizi and the Goldbergs both compendiums of progressive contemporary styles?


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Did Bach know the Essercizi?


There is no proof that Bach had a copy of the Essercizi, but the musical, stylistic parallels suggest that he knew the contents. A copy could have found its way to Bach in Leipzig by, say, 1741, possibly via the book and music trade of either Nuremberg or Leipzig, which hosted one of Europe's leading book fairs. There are also striking similarities between Scarlatti's 'Essercizi per gravicembalo' consisting of 30 virtuoso sonatas and that of Bach's synonymous 'Clavier Ubung...vors Clavicimbal' consisiting of thirtty virtuoso variations.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Yes I do! 

(Bach was very keen on the Italian Composers. He was studying them and he was copying their music to learn it. The result, after a time of very intensiv occupation with them is his famous Italian Concerto. I believe Bach has earned A LOT from them and, because he was a genius, went further.)


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Yes I think they sound great on harpsichord, piano and guitar, he wrote a lot of excellent keyboard works.

Interesting information about possible influence on Bach above, its something I hadn't really thought of.


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