Scarlatti wrote his music with very few directions in the score. There are no dynamic markings and no phrase markings. In the example below, notice that the division of notes at middle C is the only deciding factor as to which staff the notes go on. Scarlatti put the stems where they would produce the most readable score. They do not necessarily indicate which hand is to play.
Some techniques take several sonatas to explore fully.
Scarlatti used the sounds of Spain in his sonatas a great deal. One can hear the popular dances of Spain, especially the jota, the guitars, and all the fanfare of court life. Kirkpatrick believes that the Sonata in E major, K.380 would have been written more than halfway through Scarlatti's collection of sonatas. We know that it was copied near the end of his life for it appears in manuscript VII in Venice in 1754, three years before he died in Madrid in 1757. Even though Scarlatti was contemporary with J. S. Bach and Handel, if we are to agree with Kirkpatrick's dates of these manuscripts, Scarlatti was writing his sonatas contemporary with C.P.E. Bach.