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SCARLATTI:
250 YEARS LATER by Kevin Shihoten Domenico Scarlatti was in his formative years when he gained legal emancipation from his controlling father at age 32. Then working for the Portugese ambassador at the Vatican, he resigned in 1719 and eventually settled in Lisbon where he served as maestro to King John V, teaching piano and directing several musicians in sacred and secular functions. Among his piano students was the talented princess Maria Barbara, the future Queen of Spain for whom he'd later write nearly all his keyboard works. Returning to his native Italy in 1724 to visit his ailing father Alessandro, the prolific composer who established the Neapolitan school of 18th-century opera, Scarlatti was 40 but musically juvenile; his output hitherto was relatively indistinct, reflecting current trends and, above all, his father's influence. When Alessandro died the following year, it would be ten years before his son reached early maturity. Scarlatti was married three years later in Rome to 16-year-old Maria Catalina Gentile, a decision possibly affected by young Maria Barbara's engagement to 11-year-old Spanish crown prince Fernando back in Portugal. In their honor, Scarlatti composed Festeggio Armonico, a serenade premiered at the Royal Palace. He then followed Maria Barbara to Spain, moving to Madrid permanently in 1733. Though he kept writing vocal music, Scarlatti spent his remaining Iberian years copiously producing keyboard sonatas. Spanish court life with Fernando and Maria Barbara was controlled and at times glum, but no longer maestro he was free to partake in private entertainment in the form of elaborate evening celebrations of art and music. Attendance to all functions was mandatory in the court of King Phillip V, who suffered from severe depression and was fiercely protected by his wife. Scarlatti's sonatas so reflect joy and sadness, and played a remedial role during Fernando and Maria Barbara's marriage woes. He also met around this time Italian castrato Farinelli, who influenced heavily the royal family and with whom he developed an enduring friendship. In 1738, Scarlatti reached the culmination of his royal patronage and good fortune when he was knighted in Portugal by John V. Then 53 and a father of five, he dedicated to him his Essercizi per gravicembalo, a striking set of 30 keyboard sonatas that marked the start of his musical career. The only work he lived to see published under his authorization, it had the following preface: Do not expect, whether you are an amateur or a professional, to find any profound intention in these compositions, but rather an ingenious jesting with art by means of which you may attain freedom in harpsichord playing. It was not self-interest or ambition that led me to publish them, but obedience. Perhaps they may please you, in which case I may more willingly obey further commands to gratify you in a simpler and more varied style. After the death of Phillip V, Fernando and Maria Barbara attained the Spanish thrones in 1746. Scarlatti in his last decade was very prolific, bearing children (with second wife Anastasia Ximenes) into his mid-60s and composing hundreds more sonatas, the copying of which ran from 1752 until 1757, the year of his death. There is no evidence of his burial site and, aside from a part of the Misere in G, Scarlatti's own manuscripts are completely lost. Scarlatti's output of some 555 keyboard sonatas contributed profoundly to the evolution of keyboard technique, utilizing glissandi, hand-crossing, large jumps and octaves. Almost foreseeing the advent of the modern piano, they were prototypical of the Classical style. But conventional Classical sonatas they are not, for rather than being ternary Scarlatti sonatas are single-movement binary works. Ralph Kirkpatrick, a pioneer in Scarlatti research who developed in the 1950s a chronological numbering system—one of at least three—for the sonatas, categorizes them generally as closed or open. While the closed sonata contains halves that use the same opening themes, the open sonata tends towards asymmetry; the latter section is more like an interlude, presenting new themes or developing introductory material. Also not densely polyphonic, the sonatas depend more on the free use of thematic ideas with chords often serving as tonal anchors and guides. |
 Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757). Domingo Antonio de Velasco, c. 1738. Domenico Scarlatti's freshness and unbelievable daring in the use of harmony and rhythm make him one of the most original composers of his century. Vladimir Horowitz
Salient in Scarlatti sonatas are Italian and Spanish dance forms and rhythms; early sonatas have minuets, gavottes and gigas, and later works have boleros, jotas, seguidillas, sicilianos and tarantellas. None are named so, but familiarity with them is essential in performing the sonatas, of which Kirkpatrick writes: The music ranges from the courtly to the savage, from a well-nigh saccharine urbanity to an acrid violence. There is hardly an aspect of Spanish life, or Spanish popular music and dance, that has not found itself a place in the microcosm that Scarlatti created with his sonatas. Kirkpatrick also places them in five groups: I. Earliest sonatas. Style: 18-century, vocal and with basic figurations. II. Essercizi per gravicembalo (1738). Style: Iberian and Italian influences are apparent, but showcased in a manner unique to himself. III. Post- Essercizi. (1738-52). Style: Virtuosic; open form introduced. Also composed some unusually simple sonatas. IV. Middle period (1752-4). Style: extended lyricism and stretched binary form. Also composed more slow movements and original uses of modulation and tonality. Towards 1754, shows more restraint and subtly in technical effects, with tones more uniform and less dramatic. Experimenting with other forms like the rondo is also apparent. V. Late period (1754-7). Style: More expansive use of the keyboard due to evolving instrument. Many in closed form and less showy and more introspective, often scored in larger note values and alla breve key signatures. You may hear exerpts spanning all periods here. |
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