Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K32 in D minor

A Scarlatti recital with a twist. Joseph Moog has assembled a fascinating survey of Scarlatti sonatas, and included a selection of the 18th-century master’s works as re-composed by some of the giants of the piano keyboard from the 19th and 20th centuries. The drama contained in Scarlatti’s short one-movement sonatas has always exerted a hold over both musicians and listeners since their composition.

The development of the piano in the 19th century provided too great a temptation for composer pianist Carl Tausig, a rival of Chopin and star pupil of Liszt (and admired by Brahms and Wagner) to ignore these works. He, along with Ignaz Friedman (1882–1948) exploited drama and poetry in Scarlatti’s music, using the new grand piano to its full extent.

Friedman was a pianist of extraordinary gifts, and a musical freedom that some thought bordered on the eccentric. Walter Gieseking’s fantastical composition on a theme by Scarlatti forms the centrepiece of Moog’s recital. Gieseking (1895–1956) was a child prodigy, playing all 32 Beethoven sonatas from memory at the age of 15: "The most difficult part was memorising them," he said, adding "and that wasn’t very difficult." Gieseking’s 'Chaconne on a theme by Scarlatti' is a stupendous work of dazzling virtuosity.

“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.”

Scarlatti wrote no less than 555 keyboard sonatas, all of them true gems thanks to their melodic and rhythmic inventiveness. They use many of the harpsichord’s subtleties and appeal to the whole of the agility and imagination of those who endeavour to play it. Racha Arodaky simultaneously displays her great virtuosity, her artful eloquence and her intimate knowledge of baroque music throughout this disc.

“It was with Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord, on an old black record, that I first heard the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. My favourites were those that showed some Spanish influence: that rugged pride, those implacable rhythms, that mad vitality, what splendour! I have chosen mostly sonatas that are joyful or humorous in character, though among them I have slipped two little masterpieces of miraculous simplicity (K32, K40) as well as a few compelling meditations (K8, K69, K144). Wandering from nostalgia to sorrow, as though improvised, these last, void of any pathos, are yet bathed in the radiant beauty of the sunny climes of Italy and Spain.” Alice Ader

A selection from the 600 sontas by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) that illustrate two facets of his musical personality.

CD1 depicts the genius of the composer – some of his greatest and most remarkable sonatas have been selected by Carbonara. These works illustrate the exploratory and innovative nature of the sonatas. CD2 gathers together a selection of sonatas that illustrate the gambler, or the reckless side of the composer. These sonatas are just as innovative as those on CD1, but there is a devil may care craziness to some of the music. These are dramatic extreme works that give some idea of the incredible technique Scarlatti possessed as a player, and of his remarkably fertile imagination.

2CDs of Scarlatti sonatas containing some unknown and rarely recorded works.

New recordings made in 2009.

Extensive booklet essay by the artist on each sonata.

Carbonara has recorded Ravel’s complete piano music for Brilliant Classics, and a CD of piano music by Nino Rota. He studied with Andreas Staier, Alicia de Larrocha and Leon Fleischer.

Recording made in 1998.

Luigi Attademo is responsible for the premieres of rediscovered works for guitar by Tansman, Cyril Scott (Sonatina, Alesandria, 2001), Lennox Berkeley and Mompou.

The 600 or so sonatas for harpsichord by Domenico Scarlatti contain some of the most remarkable music for keyboard from the Barock era. The influence of these works can be detected in the sonatas of Haydn, Clementi, and Beethoven. The fact that these composers, who developed the piano sonata form to new levels virtuosity, and at a time when the piano was a ‘new’ instrument, developing constantly, were influenced by his examples, has lead to many performers re-appraising Scarlatti’s sonatas. How would they sound on other instruments?

The modern concert grand is, today, no stranger to Scarlatti’s sonatas, but the guitar? The great Andres Segovia was one of the first to recognise that many of these sonatas would work for the guitar. His idea was not to imitate the harpsichord (‘a guitar with a cold’ as he famously said, much to the annoyance of the great harpsichordist Wanda Landowska), but to bring out hitherto unexplored textures and colours contained in the music that only the guitar could realise. There wasn’t much in the way of period interpretation or slavish imitation of keyboard practice in Segovia’s approach. It was a marvellously ‘gut feel’ instinctive interpretation that divided opinion. In 1994 Claudio Giuliani attempted (successfully) to navigate a path for guitarists through the purists and Segovia’s opposing positions and published a collection of Scarlatti’s sonatas that lie within the compass of the guitar. On this CD Attademo skilfully demonstrates that the two schools of thought can be brought together – Scarlatti’s genius as keyboard virtuoso, and the genius and instinctiveness of Segovia.

Recorded: St. John’s, Smith Square, London, 15 October 1984 (Scarlatti, Debussy)

Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London, 22 April 1957 (Beethoven, Scriabin, Prokofiev)

This CD contains some of the first and last recordings the great Russian pianist Emil Gilels (1916-1985) made for the BBC. The lunchtime concert at the church of St. John's, in Smith Square, London on 15 October 1984 was to be his last performance in London.

Gilels liked to play a selection of Scarlatti's sonatas - what he referred to as 'a bouquet'. He included five of them on his first BBC Legends CD (BBCL40152) from his April 1957 BBC studio recording. Here we have another 7 Scarlatti sonatas recorded in excellent stereo.

Gilels first performed Debussy's 'Pour le Piano' in December 1953 only playing it a few times. After the mid 1950s, he did not play it again until the end of May 1984, five months prior to this stereo live concert. When referring to this concert Nicholas Kenyon wrote of Gilels performance of 'Pour le Piano'; 'But this is… more than the sheer creation of sound. For every wonderfully contrived sound reflects a conviction about the music: it is a total fusion of composer and interpreter that tells us for a few exalting moments, that the music can only sound this way.'

Although he toured the UK for the first time at the end of 1952, Gilels did not record for the BBC until April 1957. Apart from the five sonatas by Scarlatti which were issued on BBCL 4015-2, we have here works by Beethoven, Scriabin and Prokofiev. As persuasive and pliant as his performance is here, it would appear that Gilels did not play this sonata again until he came to record it commercially in the studio in 1974. From Scriabin's ten Piano Sonatas, Gilels only played No.1 in the early 1950s, No.3 only in 1983-84, and No.4 in 1955-57. In this performance of No. 4, Gilels ability to combine great delicacy and enormous controlled power are ideal for this work. From Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas Gilels only played Nos. 2, 3, 7 and 8.

Approximately 40 years have passed since Ralph Kirkpatrick published his epic study of the life and works of Domenico Scarlatti. This wonderful book, the product of the author's unique combination of artistic and scholarly talents, helped to dispel once and for all the superficial impression of Domenico Scarlatti as a sort of rococo lightweight, a composer of "original and happy freaks" as one of his 18th century contemporaries described him. Today, several decades into our international love affair with 18th century performance practice, Domenico Scarlatti is a towering figure universally accepted as one of the greatest and most original artists of the Baroque.