5 Sonatas

Of all the harpsichord composers only J.S.Bach is more attractive to pianists than Domenico Scarlatti. If it took them rather longer to discover Scarlatti it was probably because, in comparison with his German contemporary, he seemed to be a less than serious thinker. As Schumann put it in 1839, “he is far emptier and flightier… Think of comparing this to Bach!” It is true that in the preface to his Essercizi, the one volume of sonatas published in his lifetime, Scarlatti warned his readers not to expect “any profound learning but rather an ingenious jesting with art.” But “jesting” that sustains more than 550 sonatas, most of them single movements in binary form but every one a distinctive inspiration, is extraordinarily, indeed uniquely “ingenious”.

Born in Naples, son of the prominent opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico spent the last 38 years of his life in Portugal and Spain as music tutor to Maria Barbara, Portuguese Infanta and later Queen of Spain. It was for Maria Barbara that he wrote his vast collection of keyboard sonatas, sustaining their variety by calling on his inexhaustible imaginative resources but also, in many cases, by giving vivid expression to the delight he took in the Portuguese and Spanish folk music he heard around him.

The Sonatas in B minor Kk.491 and in D major Kk.492 are related by a harmonic fact (Kk.492 is in the relative major of Kk.491) and by a theory – that, along with Kk.490 in D major, they were inspired by the music of Holy Week in Seville. Considering that Kk.380 in E major, which will be heard later in this programme, has significantly more than Kk.492 in common with Kk.491, it is difficult to support the idea that Kk.491 and Kk.492 are related in any way but by their respective tonalities. What Kk.491 has in common with Kk.380 is a fanfare theme that occurs just before a long pause in the first half and again at the equivalent point in the second half. Kk.492 has nothing ceremonial or processional about it. On the contrary, it is a virtuoso keyboard inspiration characterised by the rapidly strummed arpeggios and the brilliant scales vividly featured towards the end of each half of the work. Maria Barbara must have had a formidable technique.

Sonata Kk.377 in B minor is another purely keyboard inspiration with no exterior echoes. In spite of its Allegrissimo tempo, however, it does not call for such virtuosity as Kk.492. In fact, it’s a charming, almost wistful piece so attached to its opening theme that it seems reluctant to lose sight of it, developing it at the beginning of the second half (in anticipation of classical sonata-form convention) and lingering in its presence in the prolonged closing bars of each half. One of the most frequently performed of Scarlatti sonatas, Kk.380 in E major returns to Holy Week in Seville or some such ceremonial occasion: in the middle of the first half, after a long pause, it recalls a fanfare motif very like that of K.491. It stays with the fanfare throughout the second half without referring back to the opening theme of the work.

Sonata K.24 in A major is another virtuoso piece, much of its effect secured by purely keyboard techniques, like the spectacular hand-crossing that gives the work its acrobatic quality. At the same time the material is so varied    that there are hints not only of guitar sounds but also of flamenco vocalisation: there is no better evidence of Scarlatti’s highly developed sense of style and the extraordinary extent of his imagination.