Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K141 in D minor

Emil Gilels played a sonata by Scarlatti at his first public concert in 1929 and included them in his tours to the West in the 1950s. These recordings present a splendid group of the composer’s widely contrasting moods. Gilels was a true virtuoso in the Lisztian tradition, combining musical integrity with rarely equalled technique. The Fantasia was one of the works with which he won the First Soviet All-Union Competition in 1933, while his recordings of the Hungarian Rhapsodies and three works by Chopin are full of character and personality. A recently discovered notebook in which Gilels logged some of his recording sessions has made the dating of these recordings more accurate in this edition.

Ward Marston, audio restoration engineer

“I love the extravagance, the sunny glow, the light touch of Scarlatti,” says French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, whose second Virgin Classics release is a collection of the composer’s captivating and adventurous keyboard sonatas. His first release, the Chopin recital Journal intime was described by The Guardian as “altogether breathtakingly beautiful”.

“Listening to Mr. Tharaud's crisply articulated and vividly etched playing, a listener might guess that he is a Baroque specialist who, for some reason, prefers the modern piano to the harpsichord. But … Baroque music is only one of his interests,” wrote the New York Times in 2005.

In typically imaginative fashion, Tharaud combined early Romanticism with the Baroque over the 2009-10 season when he toured a recital programme of works by Chopin – the subject of Virgin Classics release, Journal intime – and selections from Domenico Scarlatti’s canon of 555 keyboard sonatas.

“I love the extravagance, the sunny glow, the light touch of Scarlatti, who shares with Chopin a precise sense for ornamentation, a culture of beauty in sound and an intimate rapport with the audience,” he says.

Tharaud’s previous exploration of the Baroque repertoire has focused on composers such as Couperin and Rameau, whose music is rarely heard on the modern piano. The tradition of Scarlatti on the piano is much more firmly established – Vladimir Horowitz, for instance, would often include his music in recitals – but Tharaud draws inspiration from developments in historically informed performance over the past 30 years. As he told the French magazine Télérama: “I am not sure that authenticity is conferred by a specific instrument, but rather in the way new life is imbued into this music … Baroque musicians have taught us to approach tempi and ornamentation with a sense of freedom, even audacity.”

Scarlatti, born in Naples, spent more than 30 years of his life serving the royal families of Portugal and Spain and died in Madrid. His sonatas are concise, captivating one-movement works in binary form, often adventurous in their use of harmony and modulation, and frequently inhabited by the exotic spirit of Iberian folk music.

“Whether on a broad canvas or on a miniature one, Tharaud’s feel for tonal colouring and his eloquence of expression are a perfect match for this inspiring, kaleidoscopic music.” That praise from the Daily Telegraph could almost apply to works by Scarlatti, but in fact came from a review of Tharaud’s Chopin album, Journal intime. More specific in its frame of reference was The Guardian’s comment on the Chopin disc: “Alexandre Tharaud explores a huge emotional range in his Journal intime, including the most thrilling and propulsive first ballade since Michelangeli's version, with a deeply intense C sharp minor nocturne at the heart. Tharaud lifts the music across the bar-lines with deft rubato, his sound clear, shining and sensuous; altogether breathtakingly beautiful.”

Domenico Scarlatti's 500 plus keyboard sonatas show a composer experimenting with form: way ahead of his Baroque contemporaries, the Italian wrote highly virtuoso mood pieces, some of them bearing the mark of the local folk music in Spain, where he worked at the royal court. In Mikhail Pletnev's hands, this 2nd selection of Scarlatti sonatas displays all the nuances of these miniature masterpieces.

“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

Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan studied in Moscow with Mikhael Pletnev, before settling in the States in 1989. He was a prizewinner in several important competitions: the Hamamatsu in Japan (where he won first prize), and the Queen Elisabeth and Busoni competitions. He regularly plays with Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov and Neeme Järvi. A wonderful interpreter of the great Romantics, Rachmaninoff and Liszt, he is equally at home with Bach (a superb Goldberg Variations!) and...Scarlatti, a generous selection of whose sonatas is recorded on this CD, formerly issued on the Pro Piano label: a stunning display of clarity, elegance, virtuosity and heartfelt emotion.

Joyce Yang, youngest ever medallist of the Van Cliburn Competition and winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, makes her recording debut with a collage of Currier, Chopin, Debussy, Liebermann, Scarlatti and Schumann. In 2005, Joyce Yang became the youngest ever medallist of the Van Cliburn International Competition, and in 2010 she was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant. She now makes her recording debut for Avie with a collage of a program that ideally represents her artistry. Joyce chose pieces that illuminate each other in arresting ways: Sebastian Currier’s Scarlatti Cadences reflect the repetitious melodic motifs of Scarlatti’s Sonatas, Lowell Liebermann’s Gargoyles echo the esoteric timelessness of Debussy’s Estampes, and Liszt’s transcription of Chopin’s song My Joys opens a window onto Schumann’s Carnaval.

These works are an aural autobiography of Joyce’s first 20-some years of music making, and also portray her unique brand of synesthesia, the visualization of music in shapes and colours. Appropriately, the repertoire Joyce chose for this recording is inspired by vivid imagery, and the striking artwork is the result of collaboration with artist Joan Snyder, whose colorful paintings are featured throughout.

Joyce performs with such orchestras as the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore and Houston Symphonies; Philadelphia Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic, with such conductors as Edo de Waart, Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Leonard Slatkin, and David Robertson. In recital Joyce has appeared at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, and Zurich’s Tonhalle. An avid chamber musician, she is a recurring guest at the summer festivals in Aspen, La Jolla and Santa Fe. Born in Seoul, Korea in 1986, Ms. Yang moved to the United States in 1997 to study at the Juilliard School where she graduated with honours. A Steinway Artist since 2008, Joyce resides in New York City.