Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

[Mandryka]

Try Francesco Cera. He's recorded on both piano and harpsichord, a boots on the keyboard style, and the selection is inspired.

[Brian]

Happy to see a shout out for Marchionda's guitar recital, which is really well done (and one of my favorite ways to listen to the slower, more contemplative sonatas).

[Mandryka]

I have the Astrée recording and enjoy it on the occasions I listen to it. I'd always had the impression that people did not think as highly of the Mirare issues but perhaps I will just have to listen for myself.

If you find yourself enjoying the early Hantai, maybe try to hear this, she worked with Hantai on it and it shows.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Here's what I found to be an (unexpected) gem:

Margherita Torretta: Bang-On Scarlatti From Out Of Nowhere



Although one reader's response was immediately:

From out of nowhere indeed. Please send it back from whence it came.

No 10/10 for Torretta D. Scarlatti. Generous would be 6/6.

This vanity downloader's not to be mentioned with the review's reference recordings, nor more than a dozen others I have on legitimate labels.

Travesty.

Boris borisgoodenoff@yahoo.com

I might be willing to suggest that 10/10 was 'spur of the moment'; I had initially rated it just below. But then I thought: NO. I'm enjoying this so damn much, I won't let caution make me take it down a notch only so not to 'expose' myself. And I'm happy to stand by it.

[milk]

Here's what I found to be an (unexpected) gem:

Margherita Torretta: Bang-On Scarlatti From Out Of Nowhere



Although one reader's response was immediately:

From out of nowhere indeed. Please send it back from whence it came.

No 10/10 for Torretta D. Scarlatti. Generous would be 6/6.

This vanity downloader's not to be mentioned with the review's reference recordings, nor more than a dozen others I have on legitimate labels.

Travesty.

Boris borisgoodenoff@yahoo.com

I might be willing to suggest that 10/10 was 'spur of the moment'; I had initially rated it just below. But then I thought: NO. I'm enjoying this so damn much, I won't let caution make me take it down a notch only so not to 'expose' myself. And I'm happy to stand by it.

Maybe it's the mood I'm in but I found this super annoying when I tried it today. Sometimes my first impression of things is wrong but she sure seems to use a lot of dynamic changes in this recording.

By the way, I wonder if anyone here has a fondness for any particular Scarlatti recordings on historic fortepiano? I have several I want to go back and listen to, such as one by Joanna Leach.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Maybe it's the mood I'm in but I found this super annoying when I tried it today. Sometimes my first impression of things is wrong but she sure seems to use a lot of dynamic changes in this recording.

Shamelessly so! Yes. 

By the way, I wonder if anyone here has a fondness for any particular Scarlatti recordings on historic fortepiano? I have several I want to go back and listen to, such as one by Joanna Leach.

I only have Linda Nichols and I do not remember that to have done the trick for me, interpretatively... and interesting, if at all, only because of the instrument. (Which usually isn't enough on it's own. Except perhaps with a really juicy harpsichord.)

[Jo498]

Doesn't Belder use Fortepiano on one or more volumes of his Scarlatti series? Or is this only true for his Soler discs?

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Doesn't Belder use Fortepiano on one or more volumes of his Scarlatti series? Or is this only true for his Soler discs?

I don't remember Belder doing it. Lester does, though.

[milk]

Doesn't Belder use Fortepiano on one or more volumes of his Scarlatti series? Or is this only true for his Soler discs?

I quite like his Soler. To me, he really made the case for Soler being a great musician in his own right - whereas before I thought of him as a shadow of Scarlatti.

[aukhawk]

Nice dress - but playing too mannered.  She likes slow, and not without some Brucknerian pauses.
Nice-sounding piano too, cleanly recorded - but far too close, no air round it at all.


Scarlatti - 20 Sonatas; Margherita Torretta, Piano

[Brian]

Naxos' newest Scarlatti volume, Vol. 24, features Alon Goldstein, who's already appeared on the label playing Mozart concertos in chamber music reductions. He's also recorded by Norbert Kraft and Bonnie Silver in Toronto, a major step up from some of the recent volumes that were tinnily/boxily recorded in random recital halls in places like Oklahoma.

Goldstein's volume includes K. 1 (!) and leads off with K. 159, a longtime favorite of pianists and of me. The jolly tolling bells in C major on this one have enticed many pianists to embrace echo effects or play the many repetitions a few octaves up or down (see Yevgeny Sudbin, who really, uh, "makes it his own" with embellishments). Goldstein is much more sober, while still not being fully sober or academic or dry. That general description applies to the whole album - mostly sober, more on the classical side, but not boring. There are only a handful of slower/longer sonatas on the album, and Goldstein doesn't really attack the faster ones the way that, say, Goran Filipec did, so the result dynamically is a whole lot of middle.

[Mandryka]

Doesn't Belder use Fortepiano on one or more volumes of his Scarlatti series?

Yes, Denzil Wraight after Ferrini. For example, for some of the sonatas around K 345. (Vol. 8. )

[Mandryka]

By the way, I wonder if anyone here has a fondness for any particular Scarlatti recordings on historic fortepiano? I have several I want to go back and listen to, such as one by Joanna Leach.

Joanna Leach - just a nice piano nicely played.

Francesco Cera Vol 3 - boots on the keyboard style playing and Cinderella sonatas. 

Enrico Baiano, intelligent exploration of how piano specific effects arguably fit some of the sonatas particularly well.

Emilia Fadini, an interesting theme - the Clementi / Scarlatti relationship.

[milk]

Joanna Leach - just a nice piano nicely played.

Francesco Cera Vol 3 - boots on the keyboard style playing and Cinderella sonatas. 

Enrico Baiano, intelligent exploration of how piano specific effects arguably fit some of the sonatas particularly well.

Emilia Fadini, an interesting theme - the Clementi / Scarlatti relationship.

Have you heard peter Katin's Clementi recordings on square piano? Really good stuff.

[amw]

Qobuz seems to be adding several volumes of the Christoph Ullrich complete sonatas set on Tacet this month (and possibly other streaming sites will do the same). Vols 3 & 4 (K98 thru K176) are already available. I'm listening now and enjoying them although the playing is somewhat "backgroundy", avoiding dynamic extremes, generally slow in tempo (e.g. K132 is 9:01 vs Belder 6:00; K119 is 5:46 vs Demidenko 4:56) and thus potentially a bit boring. But Scarlatti repeated himself so much that maybe boredom is the point. And it's nicer piano playing than Carlo Grante at least.

It's the one complete cycle I've never seen anyone talk about, presumably because Tacet has always been so expensive; maybe now it'll get some traction.

[Mandryka]

Have you heard peter Katin's Clementi recordings on square piano? Really good stuff.

I've never managed to ever get to the end of a Clementi sonata.

[milk]

I've never managed to ever get to the end of a Clementi sonata.

Ha ha. I can't say I'm a big promoter of his but I do like the sound of the square piano.

[Jo498]

I liked Demidenkos Clementi anthology (hyperion) and I have a few more anthologies (Horowitz did one disc as well).

[amw]

With Clementi I mostly like the early sonatas, e.g. Op. 6 no. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRQGFlBtHsk , Op. 13 no. 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIlqXl-LnvU, Op. 2 no. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuT2GlzUv3U

I'm not really sure what changes but for me it feels like at some point after around 1785 his imagination starts getting restricted to formulas, whereas before that his idea of sonata form was less set in stone and more open to experimentation, along the lines of what Beethoven and Dussek were also doing around the same time. He's not quite up to their level even in those early works but they're still fun to hear. The late sonatas that mostly get anthologised by modern pianists I've never found as appealing.

[milk]