Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

[Mandryka]

I haven't listened to the Horowitz recording in years.  It was the first recording of these sonatas I heard on piano and I wonder how it stands up today.

Interesting to compare Tipo and Horowitz in the same sonatas.

[Brian]

I listened to a handful of sonatas by Carlo Granté last night. What struck me is how poised and balanced, sane, tame it sounded.  Maybe this is inevitable with modern piano. Anyway, I thought it was gross distortion of the music. Pianists should keep their mits off most of most of these sonatas!

I listened to just one, my favorite, K159. I enjoyed the way that Grante softens his touch to piano for the very last section of the sonata, ending a joyful piece on a reflective note. But I did not enjoy the way he teased tempo by momentarily speeding up or slowing down at transitions, climaxes, and ends of phrases. Overall will listen to a few others but it may not have $200 worth of appeal for me.

If you are concerned that tameness is the fate of all pianists in this music definitely try Pletnev and Sudbin and maybe Goran Filipec.

[amw]

I was going to say it's kind of weird to have a favourite Scarlatti sonata, but I guess I also have a favourite one (two actually, I guess I could pick one but don't know which at the moment) so I can't really judge.

Anyway as long as I'm listening to more Scarlatti on piano, if anyone has any other Scarlatti (or Soler or Seixas or whoever) fortepiano recommendations, they will certainly be read by me.

[Mandryka]

I listened to just one, my favorite, K159. I enjoyed the way that Grante softens his touch to piano for the very last section of the sonata, ending a joyful piece on a reflective note. But I did not enjoy the way he teased tempo by momentarily speeding up or slowing down at transitions, climaxes, and ends of phrases. Overall will listen to a few others but it may not have $200 worth of appeal for me.

If you are concerned that tameness is the fate of all pianists in this music definitely try Pletnev and Sudbin and maybe Goran Filipec.

Do you want the sonata played strictly?

I heard Pletnev do an all Scarlatti concert once.

[Mandryka]

Here's an imaginative 159, Sergio Vartolo, after 421

https://www.youtube.com/v/ErL-aWjWsCI

[Brian]

Do you want the sonata played strictly?

Not sure what you mean and also not sure how to answer as I'm still just in the early exploring days of getting into Scarlatti's idiom. But so far I have found that, among piano recordings, I've reacted best to interpreters who take liberties with dynamics and color - taking advantage of the possibilities of a piano as opposed to a harpsichord - but who are relatively strict in tempo. Even with the Vartolo video, I enjoy his ornamentation but do not enjoy his rhythmic hesitations.

[Mandryka]

Not sure what you mean and also not sure how to answer as I'm still just in the early exploring days of getting into Scarlatti's idiom. But so far I have found that, among piano recordings, I've reacted best to interpreters who take liberties with dynamics and color - taking advantage of the possibilities of a piano as opposed to a harpsichord - but who are relatively strict in tempo. Even with the Vartolo video, I enjoy his ornamentation but do not enjoy his rhythmic hesitations.

Oh I've just thought that you may like Alexis Weissenberg, he uses dynamics a lot, and colour a bit, and harpsichord ideas like suspensions, hesitations, hardly at all. I just compared what he does with my favourite Scarlatti pianist, someone called Enrico Baiano, in the famous sonata 481.

One thing that hesitations may do, if managed properly, is give the illusion of heartfelt, almost spontaneous expression. A sort of eloquence, like a well sung operatic recitative. In the more « strict « performances it's more like a Mozart sonata or something.

I think part of what's going on with me is that I am much more familiar with the toccata/fantasy idea than I am with sonatas, you know I hardly ever listen to classical or 19th century sonatas, so when I'm confronted with  a strict performance which uses colour and dynamics like Weissenberg's,  I've sort of lost the sense of what the point of it is!

[Mandryka]

https://www.francemusique.fr/programmes/2018-07-22

Scarlatti Night, France Musique

[amw]

One thing that hesitations may do, if managed properly, is give the illusion of heartfelt, almost spontaneous expression. A sort of eloquence, like a well sung operatic recitative.

example:
https://www.youtube.com/v/wLEXbePWhsU

[milk]

Nearly all Scarlatti sonatas have a similar and repetitive formula. I keep trying to enjoy them but I can't get over the way he structures them so similarly and even the way he formulates the ends of his melodic lines/resolves his melodies. Am I the only one who feels this way? It actually gets to me that I can't quite enjoy them. I don't get how artists, like Scott Ross or Pierre Hantai, can stand to record ALL of them. How DON'T they get quickly tired of him? Sorry for my trollish post. I feel like I could enjoy Scarlatti if I could just stop noticing the things he resorts to in all his compositions. It's like a tick I have now. I can't just listen without going, "there. that's in every one!" 

[bwv 1080]

Nearly all Scarlatti sonatas have a similar and repetitive formula. I keep trying to enjoy them but I can't get over the way he structures them so similarly and even the way he formulates the ends of his melodic lines/resolves his melodies. Am I the only one who feels this way? It actually gets to me that I can't quite enjoy them. I don't get how artists, like Scott Ross or Pierre Hantai, can stand to record ALL of them. How DON'T they get quickly tired of him? Sorry for my trollish post. I feel like I could enjoy Scarlatti if I could just stop noticing the things he resorts to in all his compositions. It's like a tick I have now. I can't just listen without going, "there. that's in every one!"

Bach fugues have an equally repetitive formula - its the variation within that

The combination of flamenco guitar and style galant is what makes DS for me.  Also there are some amazingly lyrical sonatas like K208 or K308

[Mandryka]

Nearly all Scarlatti sonatas have a similar and repetitive formula. I keep trying to enjoy them but I can't get over the way he structures them so similarly and even the way he formulates the ends of his melodic lines/resolves his melodies. Am I the only one who feels this way? It actually gets to me that I can't quite enjoy them. I don't get how artists, like Scott Ross or Pierre Hantai, can stand to record ALL of them. How DON'T they get quickly tired of him? Sorry for my trollish post. I feel like I could enjoy Scarlatti if I could just stop noticing the things he resorts to in all his compositions. It's like a tick I have now. I can't just listen without going, "there. that's in every one!"

It might help to imagine the repetition as ideas turning round and round in a madman's brain, like the repetition in this

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

You've  got to do something with all the repetition to make it listenable. One idea is to vary the colours. This was hantai's idea in the first couple of recordings he made. He thought he could give it wild, crazy colours.

With regard to 1080's point, of course in imitative counterpoint you have a motif repeated lots of times, though sometimes with some variation (of the rhythm for example.)

But it's not contrapuntal in Scarlatti, Scarlatti doesn't do counterpoint, he just repeats himself a lot.

For what it's worth there are parts of Beethoven which are pretty bad, worse than Scarlatti because it goes on for longer. The first movement of the Waldstein is an example.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Nearly all Scarlatti sonatas have a similar and repetitive formula. I keep trying to enjoy them but I can't get over the way he structures them so similarly and even the way he formulates the ends of his melodic lines/resolves his melodies. Am I the only one who feels this way? It actually gets to me that I can't quite enjoy them. I don't get how artists, like Scott Ross or Pierre Hantai, can stand to record ALL of them. How DON'T they get quickly tired of him? Sorry for my trollish post. I feel like I could enjoy Scarlatti if I could just stop noticing the things he resorts to in all his compositions. It's like a tick I have now. I can't just listen without going, "there. that's in every one!"

All music (at least before Wagner*) is ultimately formulaic. Recognizable bits and pieces, turns-of-a-phrase, ready-made segments... added to form a greater whole. The difference between lasting composing talents that we still listen to and those who fell by the wayside is -- largely -- the level of ingeniousness in which they combined these bits and pieces. And the level of our enjoyment may be related to how easily we recognize them now and how much we are bothered by it or not. By and large, I think Scarlatti has been recognized as one of the guys who played this game ingeniously and innovatively; your particular sensitivity to his recipe showing may just be that: an overt sensitivity that reflects more on how you listen than on Scarlatti's perception with others. Does that make sense?

(Even in and after Wagner, but the segments become more complex and harder to tell.)

[Todd]

Nobody replied to this in Recordings You Are Considering, so...:

The solo/2CD piano recitals I'm collecting include Yevgeny Sudbin, Claire Huangci, Konstantin Scherbakov, Sergei Babayan, Goran Filipec, Benjamin Frith, and Anne Queffelec.

A bit late, I know, but Michelangelo Carbonara recorded three discs of Scarlatti.  I've not heard the recordings, and given what I have heard from the pianist, I don't know if it might be what you are listening for.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Nobody replied to this in Recordings You Are Considering, so...:

The solo/2CD piano recitals I'm collecting include Yevgeny Sudbin, Claire Huangci, Konstantin Scherbakov, Sergei Babayan, Goran Filipec, Benjamin Frith, and Anne Queffelec.

Basically just re-inforcing your instinct/choices.

First and foremost:

Pletnev: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2005/02/dip-your-ears-no-26.html & http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Mar08/scarlatti_5181862.htm

Secondly:

Sudbin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2017/01/01/the-10-best-classical-recordings-of-2016-new-releases/#9c91c4e186ae

Babayan: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-recordings-of-2012-1-10.html

Tharaud: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/12/original-and-happy-freaks-alexandre.html

Also, but not in any particular order:

Huangci: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2016/06/02/classical-cd-of-the-week-scarlatti-classical-and-en-suite/#78890adae542

Pogorelich: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2004/07/dip-your-ears-no-3.html

Cavé: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2017/01/dip-your-ears-no-216-scarlatti-haydn.html & https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2015/12/09/the-10-best-classical-recordings-of-2015-new-releases/#2d6adbe52fa0

And not to forget the classic: Horowitz.

[Jo498]

Nobody replied to this in Recordings You Are Considering, so...:

The solo/2CD piano recitals I'm collecting include Yevgeny Sudbin, Claire Huangci, Konstantin Scherbakov, Sergei Babayan, Goran Filipec, Benjamin Frith, and Anne Queffelec.

Pletnev/Virgin may be one of the most controversial piano recordings. Some people think it is the best ever Scarlatti, some think it is the worst.
Pogorelich and Weissenberg, both DG, are not quite as notorious, but also quite special and quite famous.
Zacharias is more straightforward and you will get not only the most famous sonatas but a wider spectrum.
Queffelec/Erato was also highly regarded, she includes the "cat fugue", IIRC. I think there are also a few sonatas with imitative two-part counterpoint, Scarlatti could do this, he wrote a Stabat Mater for 10 voices and some more sacred music in the "old style", but the sonatas are obviously different.

Especially with one-disc-anthologies you will get a lot of overlap because almost everybody plays the most famous sonatas.

[milk]

All music (at least before Wagner*) is ultimately formulaic. Recognizable bits and pieces, turns-of-a-phrase, ready-made segments... added to form a greater whole. The difference between lasting composing talents that we still listen to and those who fell by the wayside is -- largely -- the level of ingeniousness in which they combined these bits and pieces. And the level of our enjoyment may be related to how easily we recognize them now and how much we are bothered by it or not. By and large, I think Scarlatti has been recognized as one of the guys who played this game ingeniously and innovatively; your particular sensitivity to his recipe showing may just be that: an overt sensitivity that reflects more on how you listen than on Scarlatti's perception with others. Does that make sense?

(Even in and after Wagner, but the segments become more complex and harder to tell.)

It makes sense. Mandryka as well. Well, I'm glad my screed garnered some intelligent responses. I mean it wasn't a scintillating post to begin with but y'all gave me food for thought. I've been trying with Scarlatti for years and I have a good variety of recordings. I may keep trying. He's the one "great" baroque keyboard composer who does this to me. Well, Soler sometimes too, but I find more variation in Soler's sonatas. Or maybe Soler is already moving out of baroque. For some reason the repetition in Bach never bores me or annoys me. Anyhoo, thanks for the good-natured reactions. 

[aukhawk]

Scarlatti on 2 (or more) discs?

Sudbin and Huangci would top my list, with Queffelec's more recent 1-disc recital on Mirare also very fine, her earlier one I find a bit mundane.  And Hantai on harpsichord. 
Hewitt has also recorded two discs, very listenable but no match for Sudbin as I hear it, but at least she wins on the cover art by a country mile.

[Jo498]

Soler is mostly post-baroque already, I'd say. Later on he wrote 4-movement sonatas that are basically classical, despite certain differences to the "mainstream" classical style of central Europe. Heck, even Scarlatti is gallant style, almost pre-classical at times.
For me the whole point of listening to Scarlatti is that his sonatas are quite different from Bach fugues, Handel suites or the French clavecinists.

[milk]

Soler is mostly post-baroque already, I'd say. Later on he wrote 4-movement sonatas that are basically classical, despite certain differences to the "mainstream" classical style of central Europe. Heck, even Scarlatti is gallant style, almost pre-classical at times.
For me the whole point of listening to Scarlatti is that his sonatas are quite different from Bach fugues, Handel suites or the French clavecinists.

I really like Pieter-Jan Belder's Soler series. Sorry to get off-topic here.