Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 4

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DOMENICO SCARLATTI
Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 4
Beatrice Long (piano)

[ Naxos / CD ]

Release Date: Thursday 5 September 2002

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

"Long is at her most persuasive in the more delicately inflected pieces, whose heady atmosphere, often one of melancholy, is conveyed with sensibility...her recital stands up well beside the competition."
- BBC Music Magazine

"Long is at her most persuasive in the more delicately inflected pieces, whose heady atmosphere, often one of melancholy, is conveyed with sensibility...her recital stands up well beside the competition."
- Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine, November 2002

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685, sixth of the ten children of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, Sicilian by birth and chiefly responsible for the early development of Neapolitan opera. The Scarlatti family had extensive involvement in music both in Rome and in Naples, where Alessandro Scarlatti became maestro di cappella to the Spanish viceroy in 1684. Domenico Scarlatti started his public career in 1701 under his father's aegis as organist and composer in the vice-regal chapel. The following year father and son took leave of absence to explore the possibilities of employment in Florence, and Alessandro was later to exercise paternal authority by sending his son to Venice, where he remained for some four years. In 1709 Domenico entered the service of the exiled Queen of Poland, Maria Casimira, in Rome, there meeting and playing against Handel in a keyboard contest, in which the latter was declared the better organist and Scarlatti the better harpsichordist. It has been suggested that he spent a period from 1719 in Palermo, but his earlier connection with the Portuguese embassy in Rome led him before long to Lisbon, where he became music-master to the children of the royal family. This employment took him in 1728 to Madrid, when his pupil the Infanta Maria Barbara married the heir to the Spanish throne. Scarlatti apparently remained there for the rest of his life, his most considerable achievement the composition of several hundred single-movement sonatas or exercises, designed largely for the use of the Infanta, who became Queen of Spain in 1746.

The keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti survive in part in a number of eighteenth century manuscripts, some clearly from the collection of Queen Maria Barbara, possibly bequeathed to the great Italian castrato Farinelli, who was employed at the Spanish court, and now in Venice. Various sets of sonatas were published during the composer's lifetime, including a set of thirty issued in Venice or, perhaps, in London in 1738, and 42 published in London by Thomas Roseingrave in 1739, including the thirty already available from the earlier publication. In more recent times the sonatas were edited by Alessandro Longo, who provided the numerical listing under L, and in 1953 the American harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick provided a new listing, distinguished by the letter K. Stylistic grounds have suggested a further changed listing by Giorgio Pestelli, under the letter P. All three are included for convenience of reference.

Tracks:

Sonata in E major K.215/L.323/P.281
01. Sonata, E major, K.215/L.323/P.281 05:58

Sonata in G minor K.4/L.390/P.60
02. Sonata, G minor, K.4/L.390/P.60 05:17

Sonata in F major K.107/L.474/P.98
03. Sonata, F major, K.107/L.474/P.98 04:13

Sonata in A minor K.532/L.223/P.536
04. Sonata, A minor, K.532/L.223/P.536 03:03

Sonata in E flat major K.474/L.203/P.502
05. Sonata, E flat major, K.474/L.203/P.502 05:46

Sonata in D minor K.516/L.S12/P.523
06. Sonata, D minor, K.516/L.S12/P.523 04:44

Sonata in C minor K.175/L.429/P.136
07. Sonata, C minor, K.175/L.429/P.136 03:39

Sonata in C major K.132/L.457/P.295
08. Sonata, C major, K.132/L.457/P.295 07:23

Sonata in F minor K.519/L.475/P.445
09. Sonata, F minor, K.519/L.475/P.445 02:45

Sonata in B major K.262/L.446/P.301
10. Sonata, B major, K.262/L.446/P.301 03:54

Sonata in C minor K.99/L.317/P.135
11. Sonata, C minor, K.99/L.317/P.135 07:25

Sonata in D major K.443/L.418/P.376
12. Sonata, D major, K.443/L.418/P.376 04:09

Sonata in C minor K.158/L.4/P.123
13. Sonata, C minor, K.158/L.4/P.123 06:22

Sonata in E major K.403/L.470/P.437
14. Sonata, E major, K.403/L.470/P.437 04:13

Sonata in B flat major K.550/L.S42/P.554
15. Sonata, B flat major, K.550/L.S42/P.554 04:40

Sonata in G major K.470/L.304/P.379
16. Sonata, G major, K.470/L.304/P.379 05:28