Domenico Scarlatti (IT)

About

Also known as: D. Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Domenico Scarltti, Donenico Scarlatti, Scarlatti, Scarlatti, D., ドメニコ・スカルラッティ

Best known for his staggering output of 555 keyboard sonatas, Domenico Scarlatti spent most of his career far from his Italian homeland, working in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. Most of those sonatas were written for Princess Maria Barbara, and they are anything but dry Baroque exercises. They crackle with the sounds of Spanish life, guitars, castanets, drums, woven into the harpsichord writing in ways that felt genuinely new. His first published collection, Essercizi per Gravicembalo, came out in 1738 and was dedicated to King John V of Portugal, who had already honoured him with a knighthood that same year. Scarlatti also composed operas, religious works and orchestral pieces, but those have largely faded from concert programmes. It is the keyboard music that secured his reputation, first in England thanks to his friend Thomas Roseingrave, and then gradually across Europe. He was considered one of the finest harpsichordists of his age, and there is a famous story of him going head to head with Handel at the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome, where Scarlatti was judged the better man on the harpsichord, even if Handel won on the organ.