Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K209 in A major

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.

Following her 2006 debut recording “Sonatas” (60164), rising star of the guitar Magdalena Kaltcheva releases her long-awaited new album, “Elogio de la Guitarra”. The disc features pieces by major Spanish and Italian composers of music for the guitar, including Joaquín Rodrigo, Isaac Albéniz, Mauro Giuliani, and Domenico Scarlatti.

Magdalena Kaltcheva was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1987. After early private lessons she became a student at the "Belvedere" School of Music in Weimar. In October 2004 she began her studies with Prof. Jürgen Rost at the Hochschule für Musik "Franz Liszt" in Weimar, and in July 2009 joined the Masters programme at the University of Music in Cologne. Since 2000 she has performed in a series of concerts in Germany and Europe, and has won many first and second prizes at international competitions.

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.

Thrilling and full of intense passion, these are the qualities of the 16 sonatas by the great Italian-born composer Domenico Scarlatti. Tomoko Matsuoko relishes in the technical challenges of these sonatas; challenges that were once daunting to Scarlatti’s contemporaries. The wonderful sounds she elicits on the authentic Neuchâtel Ruckers instrument illustrate why this young lady is one of the world’s most sought after concert harpsichordists.

In his History of Music, published in 1928, Cecil Gray wrote of Domenico Scarlatti: In spirit….Domenico Scarlatti belongs…..to the succeeding age, to what we may call the Rococo rather than to the Baroque period.