Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, Kingdom of Naples, in 1685, the same year

as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was the sixth of ten ch
ildren of the composer and teacher Alessandro Scarlatti. Domenico's older brothe
r Pietro Filippo was also a musician.
He probably first studied music under his father. Other composers who may have b
een his early teachers include Gaetano Greco, Francesco Gasparini, and Bernardo
Pasquini, all of whom may have influenced his musical style. He was appointed as
composer and organist at the royal chapel in Naples in 1701. In 1704, he revise
d Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's opera Irene for performance at Naples. Soon afterw
ards, his father sent him to Venice. After this, nothing is known of Scarlatti's
life until 1709, when he went to Rome in the service of the exiled Polish queen
Marie Casimire. He met Thomas Roseingrave there. Scarlatti was already an emine
nt harpsichordist: there is a story of a trial of skill with George Frideric Han
del at the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome where he was judged possibly supe
rior to Handel on that instrument, although inferior on the organ. Later in life
, he was known to cross himself in veneration when speaking of Handel's skill. I
n Rome, Scarlatti composed several operas for Queen Casimire's private theatre.
He was Maestro Di Cappella at St. Peter's from 1715 to 1719. In 1719 he travelle
d to London to direct his opera Narciso at the King's Theatre.
According to Vicente Bicchi (Papal Nuncio at the time), Domenico Scarlatti arriv
ed in Lisbon on 29 November 1719. There he taught music to the Portuguese prince
ss Maria Magdalena Barbara. He left Lisbon on 28 January 1727 for Rome, where he
married Maria Caterina Gentili on 6 May 1728. In 1729 he moved to Seville, stay
ing for four years. In 1733 he went to Madrid as music master to Princess Maria
Barbara, who had married into the Spanish royal house. The Princess later became
Queen of Spain. Scarlatti remained in the country for the remaining twenty-five
years of his life, and had five children there. After the death of his first wi
fe in 1742, he married a Spaniard, Anastasia Maxarti Ximenes. Among his composit
ions during his time in Madrid were a number of the 555 keyboard sonatas for whi
ch he is best known.
Scarlatti befriended the castrato singer Farinelli, a fellow Neapolitan also enj
oying royal patronage in Madrid. The musicologist and harpsichordist Ralph Kirkp
atrick commented that Farinelli's correspondence provides "most of the direct in
formation about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day". Domenico Scar
latti died in Madrid, at the age of 71. His residence on Calle Leganitos is desi
gnated with a historical plaque, and his descendants still live in Madrid. He wa
s buried at a convent there, in Madrid, but his grave no longer exists.
This section includes inline links to audio files. If you have trouble playing t
he files, see Wikipedia Media help.
Music[edit]
Only a small fraction of Scarlatti's compositions were published during his life
time; Scarlatti himself seems to have overseen the publication in 1738 of the mo
st famous collection, his 30 Essercizi ("Exercises"). These were well received t
hroughout Europe, and were championed by the foremost English writer on music of
the eighteenth century,Charles Burney.
The many sonatas which were unpublished during Scarlatti's lifetime have appeare
d in print irregularly in the two and a half centuries since. Scarlatti has attr
acted notable admirers, including Bla Bartk, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Johannes
Brahms, Frdric Chopin, Emil Gilels, Enrique Granados, Marc-Andr Hamelin, Vladimir Hor
owitz, Ivo Pogoreli , Heinrich Schenker and Dmitri Shostakovich.
Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas are single movements, mostly in binary form, an
d some in early sonata form, and mostly written for the harpsichord or the earli
est pianofortes. (There are four for organ, and a few for small instrumental gro
up). Some of them display harmonic audacity in their use of discords, and also u
nconventional modulations to remote keys.
Other distinctive attributes of Scarlatti's style are the following:

The influence of Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) folk music. An example

is Scarlatti's use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal inflections more or les
s alien to European art music. Many of Scarlatti's figurations and dissonances a
re suggestive of the guitar.

A formal device in which each half of a sonata leads to a pivotal point,
which the Scarlatti scholar Ralph Kirkpatrick termed "the crux", and which is s
ometimes underlined by a pause or fermata. Before the crux, Scarlatti sonatas of
ten contain their main thematic variety, and after the crux the music makes more
use of repetitive figurations as it modulates away from the home key (in the fi
rst half) or back to the home key (in the second half).

In his sonatas, the key-touching style of the eighth notes still needs t
o follow the traditional Baroque custom as other Baroque composers' - half-jumpi
ng, broken, but time-keeping with the cultural etiquettes, rather than classical
sonatas'. The purpose is to simulate the vocal mechanism of organ and harpsicho
rd in his time. Meanwhile, this key-touching style was also made according to hi
s background of loyal service.
Ralph Kirkpatrick produced an edition of the sonatas in 1953, and the numbering
from this edition is now nearly always used
the Kk. or K. number. Previously, the
numbering commonly used was from the 1906 edition compiled by the Neapolitan pia
nist Alessandro Longo (L. numbers). Kirkpatrick's numbering is chronological, wh
ile Longo's ordering is a result of his grouping the sonatas into "suites". In 1
967 the Italian musicologist Giorgio Pestelli published a revised catalog (using
P. numbers), which corrected what he considered to be some anachronisms.[1]
Aside from his many sonatas, Scarlatti composed a number of operas and cantatas,
symphonias, and liturgical pieces. Well known works include the Stabat Mater of
1715 and the Salve Regina of 1757, which is thought to be his last composition.