Welcome to the wonderful sounds of Domenico Scarlatti! Here you will find over 500 short pieces for harpsichord, with evocations of the bells, shawms, flamenco guitars and drums of 18th century Spain. To me, it is a feast of sounds. I hope you agree.
Domenico Scarlatti was born in Italy in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel. He moved to Portugal in 1719 to become music master to the young Princess Maria Barbara; when she became Queen of Spain in 1729, he followed her there. Respected as an extemporizer on the harpsichord, and for his dazzling technique, he did not begin to formally write his keyboard music down until 1738, when he was knighted by Portugal and composed a volume for presentation. A few years later, he collected a number of his older pieces into two more volumes. But then, ill health and gambling debts galvanised him into finding his voice. During his last 6 years 1752-7, he transferred his keyboard skill to paper in the form of some two hundred suites which he called sonatas. They combine pure joyous harpsichord sounds with the taut rhythms of Spanish dance and the harmonic brilliance of his Italian heritage to a degree that places him among the greatest musicians of all time.
For a performer, there is always a conflict between saying as much as one can with each individual piece, and being faithful to the lifetime-built philosophy of the composer. Intellect produces complexity, but feeling demands simplicity. Most performers, on encountering the range and quantity of Scarlatti's music, quickly choose a few pieces and interpret him as a capricious mannerist (or, worse in my opinion, as a romantic). This tendency is exacerbated by the characteristics of the piano, to which Scarlatti's sounds do not transfer well. (His at-times breathtaking technique does transfer, as Vladimir Horowitz amply demonstrated. He and Scarlatti would have had a ball together!) Here, I attempt the opposite - to present the cumulative achievement of a great musical colourist on the instrument which was his canvas.
MIDI is a system of recording the finger motions of a keyboard player, rather than recording the sound produced by the player's instrument. As a serious classical-music recording medium, it is as avant garde today as Scarlatti's music was in it's day. Just as Scarlatti's keyboard technique was far beyond that of most of his contemporaries, so recordings such as these are beyond current MIDI practise. In particular, there is not yet a standard way of prescribing sound fonts to the required precision. Few MIDI instruments implement key release velocity (string damping), and none of which I am aware take account of the effect that one string's sound has on other harmonically-related undamped strings. But, pushing the limit of things is what artists have always done. So be it. Finger motions are pure information, the stuff of the modern age.
My recording follows the numbering of Kirkpatrick, whose study of Scarlatti is the base from which a modern player must build ("Domenico Scarlatti", Ralph Kirkpatrick, Princeton, 1953). To start, there are the 30 "exercises", as Scarlatti called them, of 1738. Sonatas 31-93 were presented to the Queen in 1742, and 94-147 in 1749 - some of these almost certainly predate 1738. (They include some works for violin and continuo, which I omit from this recording.) Then, with number 148, we begin the Sonatas proper, the pieces that were presented to the Queen as they were composed, between 1752 and 1757. The Queen's copy of the music, in the original 16 volume binding, is preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, Italy. 545 of the sonatas were transcribed for piano by Alessandro Longo in 1906, and are still available from Ricordi (Italy) and Kalmus (USA); several other more complete (but very expensive) editions have been published recently.
It was usual in Scarlatti's time to mark off thematic sections of music with repeat signs. The commonest interpretation of this marking at that time was to repeat the section with ad-lib variations by the performer, who was expected to be as able a musician as the composer. Scarlatti's carefully crafted sounds admit of little casual variation, but much of his music is written with slight pauses in one hand or the other that permit variations in hand crossings - right over or under left, left over or under right, even intermixed. From the consistency of these pauses throughout his music, I am convinced that this was the major variational technique that he used.
Most of the sonatas are built of hierarchical pair patterns - pairs of sounds paired in turn with other pairs, which in turn can be paired with other pair sets in French rondeau fashion. The primary formal structure of almost all of the sonatas follows two pairwise symmetries: tonalities are mirrored about a central double bar, and thematic material repeats after the double bar (although not always in exactly the same order). For example, K1 begins in D minor, progresses to A major at the double bar 14, and ends in D minor bar 31; thematically, bar 1 matches bar 14; 2-5, 22-25; 7, 17; 9, 18; 13, 31. In addition, almost all the later sonatas are written in formal pairs, several with explicit marking that they are to be played together. I have included silences at the end of each sonata such that, if the sonatas are played in numeric order, this pairwise arrangement on which Scarlatti obviously placed considerable importance will be heard. Since this recording is an exploration of sounds, I have omitted repeats other than in a few exceptionally short pieces.
Harpsichord actions have a tiny inertia compared to that of modern pianos - a well-voiced harpsichord can be played appreciably faster. Scarlatti obviously enjoyed having the fastest fingers in Europe, and explicitly noted some passages even faster than I can play them. (Burney quotes Thomas Roseingrave, no mean keyboardist himself, on a Scarlatti performance in 1714 as "ten hundred devils at the instrument - he had never heard such passages of execution and effect before".) Nevertheless, modern players unfamiliar with old instruments and old performance surroundings often play harpsichord music faster than it would have been played at the time. Although harpsichords have no sustaining pedal, playing any note on good Italian instruments, such as Scarlatti played on, re-excites into sound all other undamped strings, thus sustaining a tonality for as long as one has fingers available to hold down the relevant keys. The Spanish royal quarters were veritable echo chambers compared to today's concert halls. Scarlatti did not mark precise tempos, but just noted a word or two concerning the way the piece was to feel (mostly Allegro, "get going"). These recordings are an attempt to produce on modern wavetable cards sounds of the musical character of which Scarlatti was a master - those of a powerful Italian instrument in rooms typical of the Spanish court. I have strictly restricted the techniques I use to those that were available to Scarlatti on his instruments.
Many of Scarlatti's works are centered upon the visual drama of his technique, which must be absent from a recording. Nevertheless, this recording still displays, I hope, some of his brilliance. First, there is the consistency of Spanish dance rhythms as the foundation of his sound. To me, these rhythms are not polyphonic, but elaborated percussive solo accents, and as such are entirely consistent with the precision striven for by most recording musicians of today. And, when Scarlatti's phrases are repeated with no variations of sound, as he mostly explicitly wrote them, they build structure and power upon a sustained rhythmic foundation, rather than on a phrase-oriented vocal one. I have therefore eschewed melodic inflections and rubato for the most part (perhaps to a degree that overcompensates for the tendency of most performers to take the opposite approach).
Scarlatti introduces musical ideas in such profusion that, in most cases, if conventional phrasing attention is paid to them, the music becomes totally fragmented. The rarity with which Scarlatti actually notes pauses or breaks between apparently-disjoint phrases becomes justified when his work is studied overall - the silences he marks explicitly become more effective, and the phrases take their place as his development of melodic sequences, using sounds rather than just notes. The harmonies of these sequences are based on tonalities, and multiply in the manner of Italian toccatas (as, in fact, Scarlatti labelled some of his early pieces), while the melodic lines proper continually expand into multiple voices that blend into harmony. In the Italian style of his training, it is pure sounds, free of extra-musical allegories.
Harpsichords such as Scarlatti used had a much more robust sound than those used as the model for most MIDI harpsichord voices, so you may wish to experiment to find the setting on your synthesizer that suits you best. On many modern cards, the clavichord patch is closest in sound to the sort of instruments Scarlatti played on, while the steel-string guitar setting with reverberation on is closer to the sustaining character of a good instrument. If you have a Soundblaster 32 (or AWE-32), you can use the sound font I have prepared from my own harpsichord (see http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bf250/harpsichord.html ) which is close to how I hear them when I play.
A twelve-note scale can not have all intervals in tune at the same time. MIDI systems default to equal tempering, where only octaves are really in tune. This tuning was not musically acceptable to keyboard musicians of Scarlatti's time, who restricted the keys they played in so that more of the musically-important intervals could be in tune. They also valued the variety of characters that differing keys have when all intervals are not equal. I used a technique of consonance analysis to aid me in finding the tuning that Scarlatti used most commonly, since no records of this survive other than the music itself. These recordings use the best tuning I have found, one published by d'Alembert in 1752. With it, Scarlatti displays a harmonic sureness that is, to my ears at least, lacking with Italian tunings of the period, which historically one would expect him to have used.
A closing note: What would I do differently with the sonatas if I were to start over? 537 things different! (I think that's how many I recorded.) Let me start on a positive note - I'd keep my focus on tonality and tone colours - it's so special to Scarlatti. I want my sound to be clear, powerful, and legato - I'd keep everything that contributes to that. So, I'll probably always keep some MIDI quantizing active to attain that clarity that my old fingers so seldom can deliver now. You play very differently in a living room than in a large concert hall - you have to play differently yet again in cyberspace, the world of pure disembodied information. You have to recast the whole way you approach music, compared to live performance - your appearance counts zero (no reviving listeners with spectacular hand crossing variations), audience interaction is gone (no coughing is great, but no breathing isn't), suspense, surprise and other excitement pale by the third playing.... (Listen to K.164, where I have left in one "surprise" pause, for a few times for an example.) There's an old saying, "friends die off but enemies accumulate" - if you are going to record music, you'd better believe it. There is no question in my mind as to the weakest area of my playing - melody. In my reaction against the non-stop rubato-rallentando treatment of so many, I threw out too much of Scarlatti's melodic shape. I'm working on that. Pregnant pauses should only occur every nine months, but melody should always be present! And, I let my intellect override my feelings when I omitted closing rallentandos in the early versions. The idea has some merit, that the rhythm should keep going after the fingers stop, but it doesn't work - too many of them were too abrupt and I've redone them. But mostly, I'll keep trying to grow, keep exploring the fascinating beauty of sound. All kinds of little details will change - that's life. And to me, music is the instinctive and total struggle of life against non-life.
Anyone may copy, play, and adapt my recordings as they wish, as long as no charge whatsoever is made for copies or access - they must remain absolutely free to all. Scarlatti did not claim copyright on any of this music and it was widely copied during his lifetime. The files are a record of my performance, are not mechanically derived from any source, and I did not consult copyrightable editions during their preparation. They were created and edited using a Kawai MIDI keyboard, Cubase Compact for Windows, and a Soundblaster 32.
Happy listening!
Index to the Sonatas
Kirkpatrick # Longo time ---------------- 1 366 1:12 2 388 1:19 3 378 1:31 4 390 1:39 5 367 1:42 6 479 1:31 7 379 2:28 8 488 1:38 9 413 1:41 10 370 1:16 11 352 1:17 12 489 1:56 13 486 2:10 14 387 1:39 15 374 1:42 16 397 3:27 17 384 1:56 18 416 2: 4 19 383 2: 9 20 375 1:47 21 363 2:47 22 360 1:34 23 411 2:55 24 495 2:38 25 481 1:51 26 368 2:23 27 449 1:43 28 373 1:55 29 461 2:58 30 499 4: 9 31 231 2: 9 32 423 0:37 33 424 1:57 34 s7 0:40 35 386 1:25 36 245 1:27 37 406 1:58 38 478 1: 9 39 391 1:54 40 357 0:46 41x 42 s36 0:40 43 40 1:31 44 432 2:25 45 265 1:38 46 25 2:45 47 46 2:31 48 157 1:53 49 301 2:40 50 440 2:18 51 20 1:51 52 267 3: 3 53 261 1:41 54 241 2:32 55 335 1:46 56 356 2:25 57 s38 2:38 58 158 3: 2 59 71 1: 3 60 13 1:19 61 136 3: 8 62 45 1:36 63 84 1: 6 64 58 0:52 65 195 1: 2 66 496 1:21 67 32 0:58 68 114 1:46 69 382 1:47 70 50 1:10 71 81 1: 1 72 401 1:19 73v 217 74 94 0:46 75 53 0:50 76 185 1: 8 77v 168 78v 75 79 80 1:24 80v 81v 271 82 30 2:41 83 s31 1:26 84 10 1:56 85 166 1:48 86 403 2:43 87 33 2:29 88v 36 89v 211 90v 106 91v 176 92 362 1:56 93 336 3:44 94 0:46 95 358 0:51 96 465 3: 2 97x 98 325 1:34 99 317 2:11 100 355 1:33 101 494 2: 6 102 89 1:33 103 233 1:48 104 442 3: 8 105 204 3: 3 106 437 1:27 107 474 2:18 108 249 1:41 109 138 2:50 110 469 1:54 111 130 1:42 112 298 1:37 113 345 2:14 114 344 2:41 115 407 3:46 116 452 1:50 117 244 2:58 118 122 1:58 119 415 3: 3 120 215 2:43 121 181 2:31 122 334 2:21 123 111 2:20 124 232 2:14 125 487 1:27 126 402 2:10 127 186 2:33 128 296 2:31 129 460 2: 6 130 190 1:29 131 300 1:41 132 457 2:53 133 282 2:10 134 221 2:30 135 224 2:24 136 377 2: 5 137 315 2: 7 138 464 1:52 139 6 2:26 140 107 2:14 141 422 2: 8 142x 143x 144x 145 369 1:51 146 349 1:23 147 376 2:39 148 64 1:35 149 93 1:16 150 117 1:27 151 330 1:53 152 179 1:19 153 445 1: 6 154 96 1:51 155 197 1:37 156 101 1:40 157 405 1:59 158 4 1:50 159 104 1:23 160 15 3: 0 161 417 1:32 162 21 2:44 163 63 0:54 164 59 1:33 165 52 1:39 166 51 1:42 167 329 2:43 168 280 1:44 169 331 2:19 170 303 2:48 171 77 1:27 172 s40 2:46 173 447 2:17 174 410 2:21 175 429 2: 3 176 163 2:59 177 364 1:33 178 162 0:59 179 177 1:26 180 272 1:30 181 194 2:20 182 139 1:32 183 473 2: 1 184 189 2:15 185 173 1:17 186 72 1:30 187 285 2:21 188 239 2:46 189 143 2: 2 190 250 1:37 191 207 2: 0 192 216 2:25 193 142 1:52 194 28 2:57 195 s18 2: 7 196 38 1:28 197 147 1:36 198 22 1:45 199 253 2:11 200 54 1:56 201 129 2: 9 202 498 2:28 203 380 2:21 204x 205 s23 4:44 206 257 4:25 207 371 1:30 208 238 1:23 209 428 2:23 210 123 1:23 211 133 2:55 212 135 2: 8 213 108 2:29 214 165 2:13 215 323 2:55 216 273 3:32 217 42 3:11 218 392 1:54 219 393 2:20 220 342 2:26 221 259 2:23 222 309 1:35 223 214 2:12 224 268 2: 0 225 351 2:36 226 112 1:57 227 347 2:27 228 399 1:42 229 199 1:38 230 354 1:58 231 409 2: 8 232 62 2:36 233 467 2: 6 234 49 2:22 235 154 2: 6 236 161 1:57 237 308 1:39 238 27 1:57 239 281 1:56 240 s29 4: 2 241 180 1:26 242 202 2:14 243 353 1:24 244 348 1:50 245 450 2: 9 246 260 1:59 247 256 2:15 248 s35 2:32 249 39 2:30 250 174 2: 2 251 305 1:26 252 159 1:51 253 320 2: 4 254 219 1:43 255 439 1:58 256 228 2:52 257 169 1:48 258 178 2:30 259 103 2:32 260 124 3:56 261 148 2:34 262 446 2:29 263 321 3: 5 264 466 3:18 265 s32 3:40 266 48 1:38 267 434 1:25 268 41 2:28 269 307 1:43 270 459 3:17 271 155 1:27 272 145 1:49 273 398 1:58 274 297 1:15 275 328 1:45 276 s20 1:40 277 183 1:20 278 s15 1:31 279 468 2:27 280 237 1:39 281 56 2: 7 282 484 2:46 283 318 1:58 284 90 1:50 285 91 2:14 286 394 1:29 287 s9 2: 3 288 57 1:40 289 78 1:22 290 85 1:46 291 61 1:48 292 24 1:44 293 s44 2:20 294 67 2:10 295 270 1:47 296 198 3:25 297 s19 2:12 298 s6 2:27 299 210 1:42 300 92 2: 1 301 493 2:18 302 7 2:16 303 9 1:57 304 88 1: 7 305 322 1:48 306 16 2:37 307 115 1:29 308 359 2:43 309 454 1:58 310 248 2:23 311 144 2: 2 312 264 1:45 313 192 1:38 314 441 2:19 315 235 1:29 316 299 2: 7 317 66 1:51 318 31 1:48 319 35 2: 3 320 341 1:37 321 258 1:13 322 483 1:39 323 95 1: 7 324 332 1:38 325 37 1:14 326 201 1:26 327 152 1:28 328 s27 2:40 329 s5 2:36 330 55 1:12 331 18 2: 1 332 141 1:55 333 269 1:24 334 100 1:17 335 s10 1:46 336 337 1:30 337 s26 1:43 338 87 1:46 339 251 1:39 340 105 1:51 341 140 1: 9 342 191 1:23 343 291 1:45 344 295 1:33 345 306 2:11 346 60 1:22 347 126 1:41 348 127 1: 8 349 170 2: 0 350 230 1:14 351 s34 2:55 352 s13 1:47 353 313 1:20 354 68 2: 2 355 s22 1:37 356 443 3:43 357x s45 358 412 1:51 359 448 1:34 360 400 1:59 361 247 1:28 362 156 1:23 363 160 1:35 364 436 1:41 365 480 1:42 366 119 1:59 367 172 1:34 368 s30 2:17 369 240 2: 8 370 316 1:44 371 17 1:44 372 302 1:25 373 98 1:18 374 76 1:52 375 389 1:16 376 34 1:50 377 263 1:38 378 276 1:47 379 73 1:31 380 23 2:50 381 225 2: 8 382 s33 1:26 383 134 1:25 384 2 1:38 385 284 1:47 386 171 1:32 387 175 1:20 388 414 2: 9 389 482 1:18 390 234 2:13 391 79 1:10 392 246 2:11 393 74 1:21 394 275 2:43 395 65 1:46 396 110 2: 3 397 208 1:49 398 218 2:22 399 274 1:32 400 213 1:26 401 365 1:52 402 427 4:22 403 470 1:44 404 222 3:26 405 43 1:31 406 5 1:54 407 s4 1:20 408 346 1:11 409 150 1:35 410 s43 1:53 411 69 1: 8 412 182 1:57 413 125 0:58 414 310 2:19 415 s11 1: 3 416 149 1:54 417 462 4:52 418 26 2: 9 419 279 2: 0 420 s2 2:48 421 252 2: 6 422 451 2:57 423 102 1:54 424 289 1:50 425 333 1:47 426 128 2:59 427 286 1:18 428 131 0:57 429 132 1:28 430 463 1:26 431 83 0:44 432 288 1:21 433 453 2:17 434 343 2:22 435 361 1:57 436 109 1:30 437 278 1:31 438 381 1:55 439 47 2:15 440 97 1:12 441 s39 1:50 442 319 1:32 443 418 1:59 444 420 2: 2 445 385 1:34 446 433 2: 0 447 294 1:31 448 485 1:41 449 444 1:42 450 338 1:36 451 243 1: 8 452x 453x 454 184 2:14 455 209 1:47 456 491 1:28 457 292 1:48 458 212 2:16 459 s14 1:42 460 324 4:11 461 8 1:59 462 438 2:22 463 471 1:21 464 151 1:23 465 242 1:30 466 118 2:58 467 476 1:39 468 226 2:58 469 431 1:34 470 304 3:23 471 82 1:26 472 99 1:25 473 229 2:10 474 203 1:56 475 220 2:12 476 340 1:51 477 290 2: 7 478 12 3:18 479 s16 2:18 480 s8 2: 9 481 187 2:17 482 435 1:51 483 472 1:19 484 419 1:34 485 153 1:55 486 455 2:16 487 205 1:56 488 s37 1:42 489 s41 1:37 490 206 3:26 491 164 2:30 492 14 2:11 493 s24 3: 7 494 287 3: 9 495 426 1:48 496 372 2:26 497 146 1:47 498 350 1:40 499 193 2:47 500 492 1:44 501 137 2:40 502 3 2: 1 503 196 1:35 504 29 1:20 505 326 1:16 506 70 1:27 507 113 2:37 508 19 2:24 509 311 2: 0 510 277 1:36 511 314 1:34 512 339 1:33 513 s3 2:36 514 1 1:30 515 255 1:19 516 s12 2:19 517 266 1:33 518 116 2:46 519 475 1:56 520 86 1:52 521 408 1:58 522 s25 1:54 523 490 1:13 524 283 1:57 525 188 1:26 526 456 2:13 527 458 1:36 528 200 1:19 529 327 1:24 530 44 1:47 531 430 1:42 532 223 1:58 533 295 1:35 534 11 1:37 535 262 1:32 536 236 2: 0 537 293 1:42 538 254 1:45 539 121 2:33 540 s17 2: 5 541 120 2:25 542 167 2: 3 543 227 2: 6 544 497 1:43 545 500 1:46 546 312 1:44 547 s28 2:18 548 404 2: 2 549 s1 2: 6 550 s42 2: 7 551 396 2: 6 552 421 1:56 553 425 1:55 554 s21 2: 4 555 477 1:57 sum 17:39:5 v violin & continue x no score available