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What is a good edition of the Scarlatti sonatas? I use Henle now, but they only have a small selection of the 500 odd sonatas. Is there a "Scarlatti edition" that is urtext and considered of high quality? It seems that most of these pieces are ignored, but some of them contain as much charm as a Mozart sonata or a Bach prelude, they are very pleasurable to play and listen to; it is surprising how much of his music is not known amongst pianists. Maybe those pianists too inclined towards modern music should take a look back at some rogue composers (which is what modern composers of less fame essentially are) of the past as to keep older music from dying!

Ralph Kirkpatrick, a famous harpsichordist, did a scholarly edition of 60 sonatas for Schirmer decades ago. There's a good urtext edition by Editio Musica Budapest with 200 sonatas in 4 vols. (it's sort of expensive and the binding of my vol. 1 fell apart).

There are various recent complete editions that nobody ever seems to actually use. There is a commercial CD of PDF files of the complete sonatas of Haydn and Scarlatti. http://www.cdsheetmusic.com/hdnscartoc.html I purchased this some time ago. It appears to be the old Longo edition with added phrasing, dynamics, pedalling, etc. (The Haydn sonatas are the same as the Peters edition still in print).

[ January 04, 2002: Message edited by: MacDuff ]

I have the Henle editions, the Budapest and also a Schirmer edition edited by Eiji Hashimoto which is very good. However, the Hashimoto editions are only three volumes each containing 100 sonatas each. Three hundred is alot of sonatas, but certainly not all 550(?) if you're looking for all of them. The Scarlatti are great peices. Little jewels. I saw a video about Richter in which he was asked if he had any regrets. His only replay was that he never played Scarlatti.

if I remember correctly he wrote 555 sonatas right? nice number... anyway of the little scarlatti i've heard i like the k. 141 the best... very fun to play as well..

For complete sets of Scarlatti, in clean editions:
Complete Keyboard works (Kenneth Gilbert - Heugel), 11 vols
Complete Keyboard works (Kirkpatrick - Johnson Reprint Corporation), 18 vols (facsimile edition)
Complete Edition of the Sonatas (Fadini - Ricordi), 5 vols.
Hinson (Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire) speaks highly of Fadini, which I have not seen. I have seen the Kirkpatrick/Johnson reprint, and like it very much. Being a facsimile, it is a bit low in contrast for sight-reading, but that may just be the fault of my ancient eyes.
The Longo on CD ROM is certainly cheap, but there's an occasional page missing, and MUCH interference from Longo's hand.
Hope that helps.

For complete sets of Scarlatti, in clean editions:
Complete Keyboard works (Kenneth Gilbert - Heugel), 11 vols
Complete Keyboard works (Kirkpatrick - Johnson Reprint Corporation), 18 vols (facsimile edition)
Complete Edition of the Sonatas (Fadini - Ricordi), 5 vols.
Hinson (Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire) speaks highly of Fadini, which I have not seen. I have seen the Kirkpatrick/Johnson reprint, and like it very much. Being a facsimile, it is a bit low in contrast for sight-reading, but that may just be the fault of my ancient eyes.
The Longo on CD ROM is certainly cheap, but there's an occasional page missing, and MUCH interference from Longo's hand.
Hope that helps.

I just bought a copy of the Ricordi (Fadini) edition (at least, the first five volumes, which was all Hutchins & Rea had in stock; R. Vaga at www.sheetmusic1.com is having Hal Leonard ship me the others). The text is clear, and the citation of variations found in different manuscript sources (ten!) appears exhaustive. I have not yet found an index that allows the user to find easily a sonata in this compilation from the Kirkpatrick or Longo number; still all sontatas are identified by both numbers. The index may be in volume 8, which I don't yet have. Also, at $60 per volume, this set is not exactly inexpensive. Still, it's clearly devoted to providing a most complete view of Scarlatti's intentions, and will, I think, serve a performer quite well.

There's a new thematic index available, here's the blurb:

for SCARLATTI aficionados: Domenico Scarlatti Thematic Index according to Ralph Kirkpatrick and Emilia Fadini by Laurette Goldberg and Patrice Mathews with William Glennon. First time available! The most up-to-date Scarlatti index, based on recent scholarship; with concordances to Longo plus arrangements by keys. MusicSources 1999. $15 plus $3 postage and handling.
http://www.sfems.org/musicsources/msbooks1.htm

This publication was highly recommended by CLAVIER magazine recently.

[ January 13, 2002: Message edited by: MacDuff ]