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February 23, 2018, 09:38:10 AM

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Do We Judge Music by Sight More Than Sound?

With an increased share of classical music consumed in various
audivisual formats in relation to audio only, a relevant question to ask is
whether it disturbs or enhances the musical experience of a classical
composition. We have selected four distinctly different types of videos
with respectable performances of the same work, Liszt’s Sonata in B
minor. Listen and watch a few minutes of each and then cast your vote!
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Piano Forum > Piano Board > Repertoire > five best scarlatti sonatas

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contrapunct five best scarlatti sonatas
PS Silver « on: June 17, 2005, 01:43:25 AM »
Member
Sr. Member
What are the five best sonatas in Kirkpatrick's sixty Scarlatti sonatas
Offline book. I know most of them have no more value than excercise pieces,
but I want the ones that sound musically the best. thank you
Posts: 408
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Medtner, man.

BoliverAllmo Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Gold « Reply #1 on: June 17, 2005, 01:44:47 AM »
Member
Sr. Member
I haven't listened to all of them, therefore can't give a list. I love
Offline scarlatti though. I find his sonatas more andmore interesting everyday.
Posts: 4157
boliver
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bernhard Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #2 on: June 17, 2005, 06:32:44 PM »
Member
Sr. Member Quote from: Contrapunctus on June 17, 2005, 01:43:25 AM
Offline What are the five best sonatas in Kirkpatrick's sixty Scarlatti sonatas book. I
know most of them have no more value than excercise pieces, but I want the
Posts: 5078 ones that sound musically the best. thank you

Are you joking?

Scarlatti is the most inventive keyboard composer of the baroque (yes,

even more than J.S. Bach), arguably of all time. There is not a single
sonata of his that can be said to “have no more value than excercise
pieces”. Where did you get this from?

Shall we investigate what Kirkpatrick has to say about them?

This music ranges from the courtly to the savage, from an almost
saccharine urbanity to an acrid violence. Its gaiety is all the more
intense for an undertone of tragedy. Its moments of meditative
melancholy are at times overwhelmed by a surge of extrovert operatic
passion. Most particularly he has expressed that part of his life which
was lived in Spain. There is hardly an aspect of Spanish life, of Spanish
popular music and dance, that has not found itself a place in the
microcosm that Scarlatti created with his sonatas. No Spanish
composer, not even Manuel de Falla in the 20th century, has
expressed the essence of his native land as completely as did the
foreigner Scarlatti. He has captured the click of castanets, the
strumming of guitars, the thud of muffled drums, the harsh bitter wail
of gypsy lament, the overwhelming gaiety of the village band, and
above all the wiry tension of the Spanish dance.

[…]

“One of Scarlatti’s favourite melodic devices, even dearer to him than

to his contemporaries, is the progressive expansion of intervals which
makes one voice suddenly split in two. Generally one half remains
stationary while the other half moves away from it like a dancer
measuring off the space of a stage against the stationary spinning of
his partner in the middle. This perpetual splitting off of one or two
voices into the outlining of other voices produces a frequent confusion
of identity. The voices are continually transforming themselves, as if in
a dream. They desert their own planes to outline other planes, to hint,
as it were, at the existence of other personages, to indicate depth as
well as outline of space, in a continually shifting perspective in which

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23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum

these imaginary personages are unpredicatably appearing and

disappearing.”

[…]

“Scarlatti harmonies are no longer chords or meeting points of

combined melodies; they are degrees of tonality. For this reason they
develop a behaviour entirely their own. It is natural in the light and
airy texture of Scarlatti’s harmony that his chords be not subject to the
same laws of gravity, so to speak as those of Bach and Rameau, that
his basses transposed to upper parts behave like basses and not like
the upper parts they seem to be. […] In Scarlatti’s architecture stone
need not be piled on stone any more than in Juvarra’s theatre
drawings; stresses and tensions, balances and counterweights will hold
the structure upright. No 18th century treatise on thoroughbass, nor
any 19th century harmony book will ever “explain” a Scarlatti sonata
properly or account for the “original and happy freaks” that are really
not freaks at all but parts of a perfectly consistent and unified musical
language.”

[…]

There is no limit to the imaginary sounds evoked by Scarlatti’s

harpsichord. Many of them extend far beyond the domain of musical
instruments into an impressionistic transcription of the sounds of daily
life, of street cries, church bells, tapping of dancing feet, fireworks,
artillery, in such varied and fluid form that any attempt to describe
them precisely in words results in colourful and embarrassing
nonsense. For me nearly all of Scarlatti’s music has some root in the
experiences and impression of real life, on in the fantasies of the
dream world, but in a fashion that ultimately can be stated only in
music.

[…]

The Scarlatti sonatas tell no story, at least not in a narrative sense; if

they did, they would always have to tell it twice, once in each half.
They have no exact visual or verbal equivalents, but they are an
endlessly varied record of experience on constantly shifting levels of
gesture, dance and declamation, and remembered sound. They ridicule
translation into words, but, with all the vitality that is in them they
resist any attribution of abstractness”

(R. K.: Domenico Scarlatti - Princeton)

So, shame on you for trying to bring these wonderful works down to
the level of Czerny, Hanon & co.

Have a look here for my favourites. (I am afraid you are going to find a
bit more than five there though).

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2339.msg20064.html#msg2
(favourite sonatas).

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23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

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The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway
where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a
negative side. (Hunter Thompson)

pies « Reply #3 on: June 18, 2005, 03:17:43 AM »

PS Silver
Member
Sr. Member
Offline

Posts: 1467
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contrapunct Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #4 on: June 18, 2005, 03:36:56 AM »
Member
Sr. Member
I think he is a very good composer, Any thoughts on why he is not
Offline more well known?
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Medtner, man.

steinwayguy Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #5 on: June 18, 2005, 03:55:10 AM »
Member
Sr. Member Quote from: contrapunctus on June 18, 2005, 03:36:56 AM
Offline I think he is a very good composer, Any thoughts on why he is not more well
known?
Posts: 991

He is really well-known, thanks a great deal to Horowitz's championing

of his sonatas.

Amongst my favorites is K.491, stunning piece.

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dorfmouse Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #6 on: June 18, 2005, 09:25:17 AM »
Member
Full Member
It's really worth treating yourself to a CD collection (or two or three ...
Offline Scarlatti becomes addictive!) of his work, played on piano. I've got
Pletnev and Zacharias, and a few played by Pogorelich. When my ship
Posts: 204
comes in I will buy every interpretation I can get my hands on!

I was first smitten when I heard Pogorelich play K380 in E major. To

me it conjured a vision of a summer morning landscape, mists and
sunshine, an echo of bells... The same sonata played by Zacharias
sounds to me quite stately and dignified, beautiful in a measured sort

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23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum

of way. And there it was again on the Pletnev recording I succumbed

to, only this time in a stunningly romantic guise, light and flirtatious.
Only my fancies of course, but it may give you an idea of treats in
store.

I saved up this piece to learn over the summer, thinking that it would
be quite hard given the depth of interpretation that I heard from these
three. When I finally got my music last week and looked at it I was
amazed that I could sightread it through, it's not technically difficult at
all. I think this is one of the wonderful things about his music, there
are such musical possibilities on even his apparently simple pieces, and
plenty of stuff that a virtuoso wouldn't turn up their nose at!

Go listen and explore!

I'll just throw in K296 as another recommendation, heartrending and

passionate .... aaaaahhh!
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"I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
W.B. Yeats

Selim Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

Jr. Member « Reply #7 on: June 18, 2005, 11:08:21 AM »
Offline
K1, k27, k141, a good triology
Posts: 40
The K1 is a really BACH-like two voices invention, the 141 is a
challenging Toccatta, and k27 is an anachronism.
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musicsdarka Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #8 on: June 18, 2005, 04:20:54 PM »
Member
Sr. Member
I heard a Scarlatti sonata a long time ago in a major key, where the
Offline pianist and to cross (i believe) his left hand over his right and back
pretty quickly.
Posts: 976

It was excellent, but I don't know which it is : (

If anyone has any idea, please tell me.

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pianonut Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Gold « Reply #9 on: June 18, 2005, 05:10:50 PM »
Member
Sr. Member
that would be the K119. happen to be playing that paired up with K9
Offline (siberian husky will like that!) am playing the latter first since it is in d
minor and then moves to K119 in D major.
Posts: 1618

i liked very much what bernhard said about scarlatti - loving guitar
music very much. i hear all of them on guitar, but harpsichord and
piano probably can be just as serene if you don't rush too much and

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23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum

yet give adequate motion to the tempos. also like the clusters of
seconds that he frequently uses to give 'color.'
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do you know why benches fall apart? it is because they have lids with little tiny
hinges so you can store music inside them. hint: buy a bench that does not hinge.
buy it for sturdiness.

namui Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #10 on: June 20, 2005, 06:14:02 AM »
Member
Jr. Member
My favorite ones are k.27 k.67 and k.427
Offline
namui
Posts: 44
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Just a piano parent

i_m_robot Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #11 on: June 20, 2005, 05:48:31 PM »
Member
Sr. Member Quote from: Bernhard on June 17, 2005, 06:32:44 PM
Offline Are you joking?

Posts: 489 Scarlatti is the most inventive keyboard composer of the baroque (yes, even
more than J.S. Bach), arguably of all time. There is not a single sonata of his that
can be said to “have no more value than excercise pieces”. Where did you get
this from?

Shall we investigate what Kirkpatrick has to say about them?

This music ranges from the courtly to the savage, from an almost saccharine
urbanity to an acrid violence. Its gaiety is all the more intense for an undertone
of tragedy. Its moments of meditative melancholy are at times overwhelmed by a
surge of extrovert operatic passion. Most particularly he has expressed that part
of his life which was lived in Spain. There is hardly an aspect of Spanish life, of
Spanish popular music and dance, that has not found itself a place in the
microcosm that Scarlatti created with his sonatas. No Spanish composer, not
even Manuel de Falla in the 20th century, has expressed the essence of his native
land as completely as did the foreigner Scarlatti. He has captured the click of
castanets, the strumming of guitars, the thud of muffled drums, the harsh bitter
wail of gypsy lament, the overwhelming gaiety of the village band, and above all
the wiry tension of the Spanish dance.

[…]

“One of Scarlatti’s favourite melodic devices, even dearer to him than to his
contemporaries, is the progressive expansion of intervals which makes one voice
suddenly split in two. Generally one half remains stationary while the other half
moves away from it like a dancer measuring off the space of a stage against the
stationary spinning of his partner in the middle. This perpetual splitting off of one
or two voices into the outlining of other voices produces a frequent confusion of
identity. The voices are continually transforming themselves, as if in a dream.
They desert their own planes to outline other planes, to hint, as it were, at the
existence of other personages, to indicate depth as well as outline of space, in a
continually shifting perspective in which these imaginary personages are
unpredicatably appearing and disappearing.”

[…]

“Scarlatti harmonies are no longer chords or meeting points of combined

melodies; they are degrees of tonality. For this reason they develop a behaviour
entirely their own. It is natural in the light and airy texture of Scarlatti’s harmony
that his chords be not subject to the same laws of gravity, so to speak as those
of Bach and Rameau, that his basses transposed to upper parts behave like
basses and not like the upper parts they seem to be. […] In Scarlatti’s

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=9954.0 6/9
23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum
architecture stone need not be piled on stone any more than in Juvarra’s theatre
drawings; stresses and tensions, balances and counterweights will hold the
structure upright. No 18th century treatise on thoroughbass, nor any 19th
century harmony book will ever “explain” a Scarlatti sonata properly or account
for the “original and happy freaks” that are really not freaks at all but parts of a
perfectly consistent and unified musical language.”

[…]

There is no limit to the imaginary sounds evoked by Scarlatti’s harpsichord. Many

of them extend far beyond the domain of musical instruments into an
impressionistic transcription of the sounds of daily life, of street cries, church
bells, tapping of dancing feet, fireworks, artillery, in such varied and fluid form
that any attempt to describe them precisely in words results in colourful and
embarrassing nonsense. For me nearly all of Scarlatti’s music has some root in
the experiences and impression of real life, on in the fantasies of the dream
world, but in a fashion that ultimately can be stated only in music.

[…]

The Scarlatti sonatas tell no story, at least not in a narrative sense; if they did,
they would always have to tell it twice, once in each half. They have no exact
visual or verbal equivalents, but they are an endlessly varied record of
experience on constantly shifting levels of gesture, dance and declamation, and
remembered sound. They ridicule translation into words, but, with all the vitality
that is in them they resist any attribution of abstractness”

(R. K.: Domenico Scarlatti - Princeton)

So, shame on you for trying to bring these wonderful works down to the level of
Czerny, Hanon & co.

Have a look here for my favourites. (I am afraid you are going to find a bit more
than five there though).

http://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2339.msg20064.html#msg20064
(favourite sonatas).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

ha

you got lectured

self loves the 239

that's the only number self knows

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WATASHI NO NAMAE WA

AI EMU ROBATO DESU

立派のエビの苦闘及びは立派である

aerlinndan Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #12 on: June 21, 2005, 01:42:24 AM »
Member
Jr. Member
Hey robot-man...you need to re-check your conjugation of "venir" in
Offline your signature.
Posts: 42
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23/2/2018 five best scarlatti sonatas | Piano Forum

I'm playing K33. I listened to a bunch of them and simply picked out
K33 as a first Scarlatti sonata to learn. It's wonderful.
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rafant Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #13 on: June 22, 2005, 06:20:00 PM »
Member
Sr. Member Quote
Offline I'll just throw in K296 as another recommendation, heartrending and passionate
.... aaaaahhh!
Posts: 301
I agree absolutely, I felt in love with this piece after hearing the
Zacharias' dramatic version. I am learning it currently, but have to
regret that my teacher doesn't like it.
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dorfmouse Re: five best scarlatti sonatas

PS Silver « Reply #14 on: June 22, 2005, 07:15:32 PM »
Member
Full Member Quote
Offline Quote
I'll just throw in K296 as another recommendation, heartrending and passionate
Posts: 204 .... aaaaahhh!
I agree absolutely, I felt in love with this piece after hearing the Zacharias'
dramatic version. I am learning it currently, but have to regret that my teacher
doesn't like it.

What doesn't s/he like about about it?

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"I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
W.B. Yeats

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