Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti (
October 26,
1685 –
July 23,
1757) was an
Italian composer of the
Baroque era. He was extremely influential in the development of keyboard music, especially in Spain, Portugal and England, through his individual style.
(Giuseppe) Domenico Scarlatti was born in
Naples, Italy, in 1685, the very same year in which also Bach and Handel were born. He was the sixth of ten children and a younger brother to
Pietro Filippo Scarlatti, also a musician. Most likely he first studied under his father, the composer and teacher
Alessandro Scarlatti; other composers who may have been his early teachers include
Gaetano Greco,
Francesco Gasparini, and
Bernardo Pasquini, all of whom seem to have influenced his musical style.
He became a composer and organist at the royal chapel in Naples in
1701, and in
1704, he revised
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's opera
Irene for performance at Naples. Soon after this his father sent him to
Venice; no record exists of his next four years. In
1709 he went to
Rome in the service of the exiled Polish queen
Marie Casimire; while in Rome he met
Thomas Roseingrave who would later lead the enthusiastic reception of the composer's
sonatas in London. Domenico was already a
harpsichord-player of eminence. There is a story that in a trial of skill with
George Frideric Handel at the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni in
Rome he was judged perhaps superior to Handel on that instrument, although inferior on the
organ. Later in life, he was known to cross himself in veneration, when speaking of Handel's skill.
Also while in Rome, Scarlatti composed several
operas for Queen Casimira's private theatre. He was
maestro di cappella at St Peter's from
1715 to
1719, and in the latter year came to
London to direct his opera
Narciso at the
King's Theatre.
In
1720 or
1721 he went to
Lisbon, where he taught music to the Portuguese princess
Maria Magdalena Barbara. He was at Naples again in
1725 and during a visit to Rome in 1728 he married Maria Caterina Gentili. In
1729 he went to Madrid as music master to the princess, who had married into the Spanish royal house. Maria Barbara became Queen of Spain and he remained in Spain for some twenty-five years and had five children there. After the death of his wife in 1742 he married a Spaniard, Anastasia Maxarti Ximenes. During his time in Madrid, Scarlatti composed over five hundred
keyboard sonatas. It is for these works that he is best remembered today.
Scarlatti befriended the castrato singer
Farinelli, a fellow Neapolitan enjoying royal patronage in Madrid. The musicologist
Ralph Kirkpatrick acknowledges
Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day."
Domenico Scarlatti died in
Madrid, aged 71. His residence on Calle Leganitos is designated with a historical plaque, and his descendants still live in Madrid today.
Scarlatti is also featured as a secondary character in
José Saramago's nobel prize winning novel
Baltasar and Blimunda.
Only a fraction of Scarlatti's compositions was published during his lifetime; Scarlatti himself seems to have overseen the publication in 1738 of the most famous collection, a book of 30 "Essercizi" which, surprisingly, dominate modern concert repertoires. These were rapturously received throughout Europe and were championed by the foremost English writer on music of the eighteenth century,
Dr. Charles Burney. They may also have influenced
J. S. Bach's
Goldberg Variations, but there is little concrete evidence to support this idea. Scarlatti's influence on late-eighteenth style may have been considerable, but he has often been considered an outsider by music historians, perhaps because of his unique approach to Baroque music, or because of the underappreciation of Spanish music of the time.
The many sonatas which were unpublished during Scarlatti's lifetime have appeared in print irregularly in the two and a half centuries since. Scarlatti has, however, attracted notable admirers, including
Chopin,
Brahms,
Bartók,
Heinrich Schenker and
Vladimir Horowitz. The Russian school of pianism has always championed the sonatas.
Scarlatti wrote over five hundred sonatas, generally in one movement binary form, yet within them compressed a staggering range of musical expression and formal invention. Because of the sonatas' technical difficulties, they have often been considered mere studies in virtuosity, but modern pianoforte technique owes much to their influence. They display a harmonic audacity, and adventurous use of
modulation (changing from one
key to another), a freshness and variety of invention and a vigorous intellectuality in thematic and structural terms which belies their "popular" tone.
Among the most distinctive attributes of Scarlatti's style are the following:
#The clear influence of Spanish folk music. Scarlatti's use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal inflections more or less alien to European art music is an obvious symptom of this, as is his use of extremely dissonant cluster chords and other techniques which seem to imitate the guitar.
Moorish and
Jewish folk music are also employed.#The full-bodied, sometimes tragic use of folk idioms. Not until
Béla Bartók and his contemporaries would notated music lend folk music such a strident voice.#The anticipation of many of the formal developments that led to the so-called 'classical style'.
Several
harpsichordists and
pianists have recorded Scarlatti sonatas.
Scott Ross recorded all of them on harpsichord in a 34-CD set. Other harpsichordists to perform Scarlatti are
Wanda Landowska,
Gustav Leonhardt and
Ralph Kirkpatrick, who was also a renowned Scarlatti scholar and published his own edition of the sonatas. Among famous pianists to record Scarlatti are Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Dinu Lipatti,
Mikhail Pletnev,
Clara Haskil,
Murray Perahia,
András Schiff, Christian Zacharias and
Ivo Pogorelich. Of great historical importance is also the recording of some of the sonatas by
Béla Bartók. The Assad brothers of Brazil (
Sergio and Odair), virtuoso classical guitarists, have arranged and recorded several of Scarlatti's Sonatas for the Keyboard on the guitar.[
1]The record label Naxos has set up a project to record all the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti on the piano. These discs are performed by various artists and have reached volume 7 (100 sonatas). The Dutch harpsichordist Pieter-Jan Belder (1966) is also working on a full recording of all the 555 keyboard sonatas in sequential order for the label Brilliant Classics.
*
List of Solo Keyboard Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti*
:Category:Compositions by Domenico Scarlatti*
Ralph Kirkpatrick,
Domenico Scarlatti. Princeton University Press, 1953. (ISBN 0691027080)
*
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)*
John Sankey—Harpsichordist to the Internet**
Sheet music for K1 to K176**
Keyboard Tuning of Domenico Scarlatti**
Complete edition, harpsichord, downloadable recordings in MIDI**
The complete sonatas (over 500 files) plus many other works.** Free scores of the
30 Essercizi on WIMA: http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Scarlatti.php
