Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The best thing about Scarlatti

Well, maybe not THE best but still a great thing is that except for those who are ultra aficionados of his music, there is an almost endless supply of his works to discover and listen to.

I'm quite familiar with the around 30-40 or so of his most commonly played sonatas and have heard maybe 40 others once or twice. That leaves me with 475 more to hear, and I almost always like each new one a lot. Imagine being able to hear hundreds of new pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. whenever the fancy strikes you!

Just yesterday I heard this one for the first time(Go to 17:53):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CLrpIfatSg

Hi, Pianoloverus! Over the past several years there have been several Theme E-citals on PW, and it did occur to me that Scarlatti has provided a body of keyboard music sufficient in emotional variety and depth to command an e-cital devoted entirely to him. There are the virtuoso showpieces, the dances, the exquisite laments, which if properly chosen could provide a great overview of his prodigious output. And, no, I'm not computer-savvy enough to manage this, but I think it's a great idea!

I love that Sonata! I just went on a big Scarlatti binge and that was my favorite of the lot that I played.

Odd/random question for people who like Scarlatti... do you usually think in Luongo or Kirkpatrick numbers? It's hard enough to keep all 550 in your head, let alone keep two entirely different numbering schemes for the same.

I liked the performance you posted, but honestly I like that sonata to go a little slower. Or... maybe more correctly, I *need* to play it slower.

I'm all Kirkpatrick and when necessary I just use a converter for the L numbers. But I have always had a problem remembering numbers, so I even sometimes have to check which one I am working now after months

Even If I have superficially gone through all the sonatas at some point (either listened/played/looked at the score) there's still enough to investigate for the rest of my life. And I do plan to learn as much as I can. I never seem to get tired of the best sonatas no matter how many times I hear them or how long I work with them. The beauty of simplicity I guess

The Russian pianists are seldom my favorites for Scarlatti...My favorite recordings are by pianists like Weissenberg, Ciccolini, Michelangeli, Tomsic, Schiff...those are the first to come to mind right now, there are many others. But that just shows how much room there is for interpretation, some people prefer the style of Horowitz or even Plentnev which is completely different.

I'm in, if somebody wants to run this.

Yes, it's really amazing to think about how much there is, and how there really is so much variety throughout. Lee Luvisi told me he sight read through every Scarlatti sonata, and made some interesting observations. First, there are more slow sonatas than fast sonatas. Second, an all-Scarlatti sonata recital is actually very effective. He's done it several throughout his career (I attended the most recent one!)

It is true (and strange) that the slow sonatas tend to be neglected and are often unknown even though some of them are among the best!

I have managed a couple of ABF recitals and certainly would be willing to put some effort for such a great cause. But I am not sure how the e-citals are managed technically. Are the files saved somewhere on this site?

I'm also in favour of an all Scarlatti recital.
I love Scarlatti's music. Simple, effective, and unpretentious. What I like most about them though is the fact that there is almost always a repeat of both the A and B sections. This allows the pianist to add in ornamentations/variations on the repeated section.
I especially enjoy Pogorelich's Scarlatti: Sonata K1 D minor

A year ago or so I managed to listen through all 550 sonatas. It is always a treat to find the 'rare gems' among the sea of sonatas. Such as: K64 D minor, and K144 G major
I plan to record more of Scarlatti's wonderful music.

I'm in! Now to find one or two that nobody has heard before.

WOW! A long time ago I heard Mario Tipo play 12 Scarlatti Sonatas as the second half of her program but I never heard of or heard live an entire Scarlatti program. How many sonatas did he play in the program?

As much as I like Scarlatti I'm not sure I'd want to hear an entire recital devoted to Scarlatti unless it was a somewhat shorter than normal lunch hour type recital of around 50 minutes. Going to listen to some YT Luvisi Scarlatti performances now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWVOcRlk-Mc

Hi, Outo! It appears to me that there are a couple of ways to manage an E-cital on PW -- one is to utilize the software that the Adult Beginners Forum use for their quarterly recitals. I believe a contributor named "SamS" is the one to contact if you want to go that route. The other way is to set up shop yourself and have all submissions go directly to you via PM messaging. From my perspective, the difference is that with the ABF software, I can provide the submissions from my private computer (i.e., the software defaults back to my computer files), whereas the other way requires me to upload the submissions into some public repository -- Box, SoundCloud, YouTube, or equivalent.

I don't really know how the other recitals work so cannot evaluate the amount of work involved. I like the software because the recital work is mostly on one sitting. Not sure I can commit to something that needs constant attention...

Hi, Outo! Didn't you manage the Baroque recital within ABF? In Carol Burnett terms, "This is-a gettin' really strange, Missus-a Wiggins".

P.S. Didn't you manage the Russian e-cital as well?

I don't see why we couldn't use the ABF software for a Scarlatti recital. We just have to fit it in between ABF recitals. They are either regularly scheduled (quarterly) or have a long lead time (since it takes us longer to prepare!).

The quarterly recitals are Feb, May, Aug & Nov. And there is a French recital scheduled for April.

The software automates the submission process. You just need an mp3 file to submit. The file is uploaded to the PW servers. We usually do a 2 week submission period. The admin does some work when the submission period closes and the recital goes live.

So you need to find a volunteer to be the admin, and decide on a month that doesn't conflict. I can help with the software.

Or find someone willing to roll their own solution.

Sam

I'm not sure about previous programs, but the recital I attended was originally planned to be 20 (10 and 10 on each half), but he cut it down to 14 or 15, I think. It wasn't a particularly long recital. But he took all the repeats.

I did. I was talking about the e-citals that are done without the software

So if I can use the software I'm ready to do it.

Interesting thread. I'm just getting into Scarlatti, pretty much for the first time. My teacher gave me a CD for Christmas... and I did as he suggested, made note of the ones I liked best, and then went to the music store. Do you think I could find more than ONE of my choices in any given collection? Sigh...

Anne, I am not sure if this goes for Canada, but the Gilbert full urtext edition of Scarlatti sonatas is out of copyright in Europe and available on imslp.org. It's the best imo. While the books are horribly expensive and the binding and paper quality sucks, the scanned ones at imslp are excellent. I have plenty of books but it seems these days I only use the prints to learn the sonatas.

The fastest way to find these scores is to just type Gilbert Scarlatti kxxx sheet into google.

Wow--thank you so much, outo. This is brilliant. I just printed my favourite one! (K. 175.) Very grateful!