A few years later, he collected a number of his older pieces into two more volumes. But then, ill health and gambling debts galvanised him into finding his voice. During his last 6 years 1752-7, he transferred his keyboard skill to paper in the form of some two hundred suites which he called sonatas. They combine pure joyous harpsichord sounds with the taut rhythms of Spanish dance and the harmonic brilliance of his Italian heritage to a degree that places him among the greatest musicians of all time. Download the Recordings Notes on the Music For a performer, there is always a conflict between saying as much as one can with each individual piece, and being faithful to the lifetime-built philosophy of the composer.
Intellect produces complexity, but feeling demands simplicity.
This tendency is exacerbated by the characteristics of the piano, to which Scarlatti's sounds do not transfer well. Here, I attempt the opposite - to present the cumulative achievement of a great musical colourist on the instrument which was his canvas. Then, with number 148, we begin the Sonatas proper, the pieces that were presented to the Queen as they were composed, between 1752 and 1757. The Queen's copy of the music , in the original 16 volume binding, is preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, Italy. I thank Mark Newbold for generously making Ralph Kirkpatrick's facsimile of the sonatas not published by Longo available to me.