ambushed by unexpected SCARLATTI! ILX school me in MORE OF THE SAME

Mainly I mean Domenico (but see below)*: a baroque Neapolitan I had had literally no thoughts about all my life at all until he popped up on youtube in the midst of a days-long Bach binge (he was born the same year as Bach and outlived him by 7 years). Also he wrote 555 sonatas fr the piano! That seems like it’s too many sonatas but maybe not!

Italy didn’t exist in the 17th and 18th century but — esp compared to Bach w/his intricacy and pietistic intensity (every moment redounds to the glory of God) — DS seems very ‘Italian’ in mode, per the slightly later clichés of analysis: fleet and brilliant and striking, light and speedy lines and runs and figures, elegantly formal pared-down construction with witty flourishes, virtuoso technique for the fun of it a little ahead of the timely pack, devices** at once very simple and oddly puzzling (not sure if this is especially ‘Italian’ but so far it does seem very Domenico) (this based on half a dozen of the sonatas = less than 15 mins of music).

*Other Scarlattis I will accept schooling in: Alessandro (dad), Francesco (uncle), Pietro Filippo (brother), Giuseppe (cousin or nephew) and singer Rosa (cousin or niece).

**such as clusters of repeated single notes that feel like a way more modern device (to me) and passages with triplets (and 3 against 2) ditto

i am of absolutely no use when it comes to classical knowledge but i saw this thread and started looking around spotify and found this album of classical guitar versions and i am really enjoying it

https://evidenceclassics.bandcamp.com/album/scarlatti-12-sonatas

👍🏽

by coincidence i was doing my scarlatti homework in the analytic writings of charles rosen and rosen points out that
(a) almost all of the 555 sonatas for the piano were written in spain (where hie lived and taught various princesses etc for more than half his life)
and that (b) dom scar admired and imitated the sonority / technique of the guitar (very spanish instrument) in his piano-writing (viz those clusters of repeated single notes: like a repeatedly picked string)

plus here he is as a hott youg man!

https://tmms.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/mramaro_realistic_formal_picture_of_Domenico_Scarlatti_when_he__ce5bcb32-0793-4a36-ae31-a38f78cc091a-768x768.png

Scarlatti fans tend to prefer the harpsichord versions and on a quick listen to some of the Pierre Hantaï Volume 1 album I get why. The sonatas come off as propulsive and percussive and shine with aggressive playing. Maybe that explains why the pointy-edged Wendy Carlos examples are so effective.

Harpsichord is not my thing, though, and I go about equally between the Schiff and Hewitt recordings. Schiff has a little more soul, Hewitt more structure. Overall Scarlatti doesn't grab my attention like some other baroque composers when played on a modern piano.

plus here he is as a hott youg man!

just ask chat gpt for recommendations if you love AI so much

^ you can append a ;) to this comment

back atcha

lol the hantai has already reminded me of the famous old roland barthes quote: "the harpsichord playing of wanda landowska comes from her inner body and not from the petty digital scramble of so many harpsichordists”

will give it a long fair go tho, thx for recommendation 👍🏽

landowska played a very significant role in repopularising the harpsichord over the piano in the first half of the 2th century, partly by touring of course, but also via recordings -- she was the first ever to record the golderg variations on harpsichord, a 1933 issue pre-sold via subscription (as items considered niche often were in classical phonography at the time: the subs also paid for better quality of recording)

this became an unexpected break-out hit and made her a star!

20th century

actually i think i'll listen to her playing scarlatti (from her "inner body")

I am not a harpsichord lover but Scarlatti is the exception. Wanda Landowska is my favorite. On piano it's Horowitz.

I haven’t listened to much Wanda Landowska, but she seemed to tackle every piece I’ve heard with the same breakneck speed and intensity - which is a bit monotonous.

maybe so but not true (based on this first listen) of the scarlatti sonatas, which are far more sonically disitinct than i expected

You may know, Mikhail Pletnev did a fantastic set of Scarlatti sonatas for piano.
They're my go-to when when I want to listen to Scarlatti (mostly don't enjoy harpsichord, sadly).
I would say Handel's keyboard works are just as good, and Sviatoslav Richter or Murray Perhaia are great there.

i may well try handel afterwards -- this was basically just a surprise to me, a name i'd known since a kid but with only a the vaguest idea what they sounded like ("baroque clatter") , and then there was much more there than i expected (tho to be fair i've so far heard the "more there" more clearly via piano than harpsichord) (i encountered some of the pletnevs on youtube)

hard to pin down exactly what the "more there' is: some of it's a character in music that i just don't associate with this era at all (which i think emerges from the piling up of relatively short similar stretches into a kind of proto-minimalist delirium) (except delirium is WAY too strong a word) (a point charles rosen makes which i probably wouldn't have spotted on my own is that scarlatti and contemporaries tended use stretches of two or four bars to build with, where later music esp.in the 19th century was much ore like to be working wth stretches of eight bars)

(and minimalism much longer stretches of course)

Scarlatti is fucking great. I only listened to him on harpsichord for a long time but drifted back to preferring him on piano. I’ll add another recommendation for that well known Pletnev 2CD set. Also check out Marcelle Meyer from the pre-LP era. The Naxos series brings a different pianist for each volume - I really like the Konstantin Scherbakov one.

No love for Scott Ross? No one’s into leather-jacketed bears?