Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K450 in G minor

“The descriptions which have come down to us today about Scarlatti the performer are small in number, but revealing. When the Irish musician and composer Thomas Roseingrave was in Venice he was invited to perform in a musical academy. His listeners, having been delighted with one of his improvisations, persuaded a young man attired from head to foot in black to seat himself at the harpsichord. When this enigmatic young man began to play, Roseingrave “thought that ten hundred devils had been at the instrument”. The young man dressed in black was none other than Domenico Scarlatti. The image of the ten hundred Devils might suggest to us something akin to brutality. However, the Devil in music is none other than the one which can overcome inconceivable difficulties with an astonishing elegance. That Scarlatti was so acclaimed in Paris can only confirm for us that he was a delicate and exquisite performer. In endeavouring to keep myself at a distance from any other form of Devil, I have wanted, with this recording, to get close to a Scarlatti who sings, who feels and senses, and who plays, by preparing a little opera whose arias take the names of sonatas. Let us follow then these characters with attention across the differing scenes and the varying situations. Perhaps by this route we can discover that what words cannot say about Domenico Scarlatti.” Diego Ares

Rec.date: 2011

Stephen Marchionda has arranged these sonatas for guitar himself. It is surprising that this has not been done before. Marchionda reveals sides of these sonatas that one would never have been able to tease out of them on the harpsichord.