Scarlatti: Sonatas

Featuring

Andrea Molteni
Domenico Scarlatti

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Composer Biography

Domenico Scarlatti was considered a formidable harpsichordist, even judged superior to Handel on the harpsichord in a famous trial of skill at Cardinal Ottoboni's palace in Rome.

Composer Biography

Domenico Scarlatti spent 25 years in Spain as a music teacher to Princess Maria Magdalena Barbara, who later became Queen of Spain, and had five children there.

Recording & Production

The album's selection includes lesser-known sonatas in every different key, a choice praised by Leslie Howard as something Scarlatti himself would have done.

Composition History

Only 30 of Scarlatti's 555 sonatas were published during his lifetime, in a collection titled 'Esercizi per gravicembalo' in 1738.

Composer Biography

Scarlatti developed a lasting friendship with the castrato singer Farinelli, a fellow Neapolitan also enjoying royal patronage in Madrid, whose correspondence provides much direct information about Scarlatti.

Interpretation

Pianist Andrea Molteni's approach to playing harpsichord music on the piano avoids pianistic devices not possible on a harpsichord, such as crescendos, diminuendos, or pedaling harmonies together.

Composer Biography

Domenico Scarlatti, the composer, was the sixth of ten children and studied with his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, a famous composer and leading figure of the Neapolitan school.