Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K490 in D major

Trevor Pinnock, a global figure in the early music movement for more than thirty years, gives critically acclaimed performances of keyboard music by Scarlatti, Rameau, Greene, Arne and Handel.

‘The playing is first rate and the recording outstanding in its presence and clarity. There are few better anthologies of Scarlatti in the catalogue.’ Penguin Guide of Scarlatti

‘Pinnock chose a mellow instrument here, making his stylish, crisply rhythmic performances even more attractive. Excellent recording.’ Penguin Guide of Rameau

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685. After appointments as organist and composer in Naples and Rome and various foreign travels, in 1720 he settled in Portugal (and later Spain) as music tutor to Princess Maria Barbara. The princess was a gifted harpsichordist, and it was for her that Scarlatti wrote his unparalleled corpus of more than 500 sonatas. The editor of the first major published edition, Czerny, wrote in 1839 that these works were ‘undoubtedly worthy of preservation because of their unique character, ntouched by the passing of time, and because of their calm, natural and invigorating freshness, which is peculiar to an art then at the height of its youthful powers’.

In fact the sonatas had a precarious history: after Scarlatti’s death in 1757, they eventually passed to the celebrated castrato Farinelli, but his collections were broken up when he died. Fortunately, the 15 morocco-bound volumes of the sonatas were purchased in 1835 by the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice. These works are remarkable for their extraordinary inventiveness and technical innovation. Drawing on the musical traditions and, more broadly, the sounds of everyday life in both Italy and Iberia, Scarlatti endowed an instrument once thought to have a limited capacity for expression with the broadest range of tonal and imitative capabilities.

The anonymous harpsichord used for these performances was built in Naples, the birthplace of Scarlatti, around 1710, and has been recorded here for the first time. It is the only remaining harpsichord with a gut register, known as “tiorbino”. Mathieu Dupouy studied at the Paris Conservatoire and has devoted himself to the harpsichord, clavichord and piano.

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.