Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica
Titolo: Domenico Scarlatti

Per cosa va ricordato? Nel senso - e scusate se la mia domanda può  apparire
*blasfema* - che sulle pagine del DEUMM che lo riguardano e che devo
studiare, non è ben chiaro, vuoi per poche fonti vuoi per carenza di opere,
per cosa il figlio di Alessandro Scarlatti vada ricordato. Qualcuno può
gentilmente venirmi in soccorso?
Grazie mille,
k_K

 gentilmente venirmi in soccorso?
Per le sue 555 sonate per clavicembalo :) (se ben ricordo....)
Dai un'occhiata qui cmq :
http://www.karadar.it/Dizionario/scarlatti_domenico.html
Saluti,
Riccardo.

 gentilmente venirmi in soccorso?
vado a saltare tutta la parte sulla vita (parte uno dell'articolo), per
attenermi unicamente alle opere.
Troverai sicuramente materiale che puň servirti, piů specificatamente al
n°4: "reception"):
(Ps: se non leggi l'inglese, ti fucilo!!!!)
Indice:
2.Instrumental music
(i) Venice 1742.
(ii) Pairwise arrangement.
(iii) Venice: ‘Los trece libros’.
(iv) Parma.
(v) The ‘clavicordio’.
3. Vocal works.
4. Reception.
Any discussion of Domenico Scarlatti's instrumental output must focus on his
keyboard sonatas: not only because of the pre-eminence of the Essercizi and
sonatas in his work but because even in their most developed form these
pieces relate to a single stylistic model, identified by Ralph Kirkpatrick
as the basso continuo. The practice of improvising an accompaniment on a
bass line was a stock-in-trade of every professional musician; in the case
of Scarlatti, a keyboard player of astounding virtuosity and immense
creativity, the habit of condensing, of translating contrapuntal
implications into harmonic structures, meant that routine formulas were
gradually left behind.
Such a statement cannot be justified without reference to the principal
manuscript sources which, with the Essercizi, have preserved the corpus of
Scarlatti's work for posterity. This is a double sequence of volumes which
Farinelli inherited from the Queen of Spain, in the compilation of which the
composer must have been involved during his final years. Two volumes, bound
like the 13 to be described below, were compiled in 1742 and 1749. The
Spanish and Portuguese coats of arms, stamped on the cover of the binding of
these collections and the subsequent ones (now in I-Vnm) indicate that they
were intended for Queen Maria Barbara in person.
2.Instrumental music
(i) Venice 1742.
The volume dated 1742, which probably contains only sonatas composed before
Scarlatti moved to Portugal, arranges the material in no discernible order
but immediately establishes the formal model, used in every separate piece,
which Scarlatti continued to follow almost invariably: this, broadly, is a
binary structure with repeats, typically linked to the dance suite. The
volume opens with 15 pieces stylistically fairly close to the Essercizi;
then a Fuga is followed by some less sophisticated, and less
quintessentially Scarlattian sonatas. These include genuine remnants from
some suites: a Gavota, a Capriccio, a Gigha and Scarlatti's only known set
of variations. There are also what are clearly transcriptions of polyphonic
motets (k69, 87), of ‘Italian concertos’ (k37) or reminiscences of his
father's toccata style (k67, 72). The influence of violin style looms large,
something which the composer apparently assimilated during his Venice years;
these are among those keyboard pieces inspired by other existing
instrumental (or vocal) styles, which led Bukofzer to speak of ‘transfer’.
The most developed of them see the introduction of procedures (crossed
hands, acrobatic leaps) that Scarlatti used fairly systematically in his
mature harpsichord music. It would be inappropriate to refer simply to
‘transfer’ in the case of the numerous sonatas in more than one movement
presented as ‘melody and bass’ which can be, and were intended to be,
performed by more than one instrument. In this case the texts retain
unmistakable violin references.
The contradiction inherent in the titling of the volume which promises
exclusively ‘Sonate per cembalo’ is only apparent: performance on
harpsichord alone is still possible, as is demonstrated by other sonatas
(the Capriccio k63 and particularly the Gavota k64) created in the spirit of
basso continuo but then overloaded by the overt notation of chords – very
different from Scarlatti's later ideas, as a mature composer, when he
arrived at a characteristic keyboard style. Curiously, the volume contains
five of the Essercizi although these pieces had been available in printed
form for four years.
(ii) Pairwise arrangement.
Some of the sonatas in this volume follow the archaic scheme whereby the
principal piece is followed by a short minuet; it is possible to see here
the germ of a conception that later underwent considerable development in
the internal organization of the subsequent collections, beginning with that
of 1749. Here the Sonata k100 displays an odd structure: at the end of an
Allegro, which has all the characteristics of an independent Scarlatti
sonata, the indication ‘volti subito’ introduces an Allegrissimo with
identical characteristics: these would be two distinct sonatas were it not
that the composer demonstrated unambiguously his intention to group them
together, instructing the copyist to give the pairing a single number (3)
within the volume. Kirkpatrick gave each piece a separate number in his
catalogue (k99 and 100), justifying his decision by the separate appearance
of the sonatas in other sources. This explicit pairing anticipates the
principle later adopted, Kirkpatrick's ‘pairwise arrangement’, whereby most
of the sonatas subsequently copied were grouped into 192 pairs and four
groups of three. Contrasting or complementary elements lie behind the
groupings: often a cantabile or demonstrably rhythmic sonata is followed by
a brilliant one, and the major mode may follow the minor (always with the
same tonic). Even when, in subsequent volumes, some pairs seem to be formed
from the juxtaposition of stylistically dissimilar elements, the overall
intention to group the pieces – which the copyist cannot have conceived and
carried out without the composer's consent – holds true. It seems that
Scarlatti was influenced by the contemporary circulation of harpsichord
sonatas in two or three movements – those by Alberti, for instance, with
which he was certainly familiar. The new volume shows an emphasis on
virtuosity and justifies Kirkpatrick's term ‘flamboyant’ to describe the
style of these sonatas.
(iii) Venice: ‘Los trece libros’.
Between 1752 and 1757 a single amanuensis assembled, from sketches or
originals that are now lost, no fewer than 28 beautifully copied volumes.
This was the period during which a monk in the Escorial was a pupil of
Scarlatti's; Soler's references to copying the composer's work and to the
‘trece libros de clavicordio’ add strength to the hypothesis that he himself
was the copyist (the more likely in that one of his biographers praises
Soler's diligence and tirelessness, attributes essential to carrying out so
demanding a task). These 13 volumes, with the two previous, unnumbered ones,
make, together with a copy of the Essercizi, the corpus of the Venetian
manuscripts; the fact that they were intended for Maria Barbara implies that
their internal organization is definitive.
The reference to Maria Barbara and Ferdinando prompts the suggestion that
the prevalence of undemanding sonatas in the first two volumes is explained
by their having been written for teaching purposes at the highest level. The
third and fourth present a splendid assortment of sonatas whose perfect
balance between musical sophistication and virtuoso demands reveals
Scarlatti's stylistic maturity. Here more than ever is that ‘ingenious
jesting with art’ to which Scarlatti referred in the preface to his
Essercizi: a game in which the inspired composer and his excellent pupil are
equal partners. The following three volumes may reveal a step backwards in
terms of quality, a return to more elementary dimensions and educational
concerns, hinting at the arrival of a less gifted pupil (perhaps
Ferdinando). The eighth volume heralds what Kirkpatrick called ‘the final
glorious period’. Given the recourse to sonatas which clear stylistic
considerations indicate were composed earlier but were deemed suitable for
the creation of groups of two or three, the evident maturity of the final
collections does not necessarily support the theory that the sequence in the
manuscripts follows the chronology of their composition: the most striking
novelties concern the enlarged keyboard (increasing with each new volume, up
to the five octaves and a tone of k485, copied in 1756), but the previous
versions of some sonatas, in secondary sources, reveal that some originally
designed for instruments with a more limited range were inserted, in
versions adapted in the light of new possibilities.
(iv) Parma.
The other series of 15 volumes (I-PAp) duplicates 444 sonatas in the
Venetian manuscripts and provides further pieces not in those collections
(including the group of 12 exceptionally beautiful sonatas which come at the
end of a secondary manuscript source, with the description ‘Last Sonatas for
Cembalo by D. Domenico Scarlatti, composed in the year 1756 and 1757, in
which he died’). The elimination of the melody and bass sonatas and of
pieces judged too close to the archaic practice of ambiguous instrumentation
shows that some filtering had been carried out on the contents of the 1742
and 1749 volumes; the omission of the last sonatas is motivated by the
desire not to compromise the standard 30 pieces per volume, which makes the
trece libros a perfect sequel to the Essercizi.
(v) The ‘clavicordio’.
Both the Venice and Parma manuscripts specify a ‘cembalo’, and every Spanish
reference to a ‘clavicordio’ generates confusion, given the ambiguity of
this term, which could indicate equally the clavichord proper or the
harpsichord (‘clavicordio de plumas’), or even Cristofori's instrument
(‘clavicordio de piano’). Since the surviving evidence links Scarlatti's
miraculous playing to the harpsichord, not to the clavichord nor the
Florentine ‘arpicembalo che fa il piano e il forte’, it is appropriate to
consider Scarlatti's keyboard music as written principally for the
harpsichord. When he specifically intended the organ (k287 and 288), the
manuscript is absolutely clear about the type of instrument (‘da camera’,
with two manuals, ‘Flautato’ and ‘Trombone’), and the pieces abandon the
customary binary structure. There are other keyboard instruments on which
the sonatas can be played, so reflecting the variety of choices
characteristic of a much more casual approach than fanatics of historical
performance would allow. The clavichord, which was fairly commonly found
throughout Spain, can render the cantabile qualities of some Adagios
effectively but robs almost all the Allegros of their vivacity. Scarlatti
was familiar with the ‘clavicordio de piano’ and in Florence as early as
1702 and 1705 had been able to try out the prototypes that Bartolomeo
Cristofori built for Ferdinando de' Medici; he certainly played the other
model, which the Tuscan prince had presented to Cardinal Ottoboni. Don
Antonio of Braganza, the uncle of Maria Barbara and a pupil of Scarlatti in
Lisbon, had travelled in Italy in 1714 and was the dedicatee of the 12
Sonate da cimbalo di piano e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti by
Ludovico Giustini, the first sonatas published specifically for the
instrument. Three ‘Clavicordios de piano, echos en Florencia’ appear in the
queen's inventory of instruments (the fact that two of them had been
transformed into harpsichords has given rise to a variety of theories). For
all its limited volume, Cristofori's instrument met and overcame the lack of
colour in the harpsichord of which Maria Barbara had complained. In any
case, it is known that Scarlatti used hammer-action instruments in Portugal
and Spain, and this must be taken into account. It is going too far to
transform the greatest harpsichordist in history into ‘the piano's greatest
advocate’ (D. Sutherland, EMc, xxiii (1995), 243–56); and all the more so
since the discovery of a detailed inventory of Farinelli's instruments has
brought to light one that sensationally prefigures the Grand Pleyel beloved
of Wanda Landowska. This was probably the famous ‘Cembalo expresso’
(‘expressivo’?) for which Scarlatti wrote the pair of sonatas k356 and 357,
written on four staves and included in the Parma but not the Venice
collections.
The inventory attached to Farinelli's will clarifies which and how many
‘various devices’ were capable of forming ‘different series of sounds’ on an
instrument which Giovenale Sacchi, his biographer, described in vague terms.
The document confirms that the harpsichord was ‘invented by the maker of
this will’, indicates that it was built in Madrid by Don Diego Fernández and
provides details of enormous interest: ‘it plays the pianos and fortes with
a quill’, is ‘an eight-foot instrument’ and uses ‘three types of string, of
copper, steel and gut, which play together, separately and mixed, according
to the attached plan of its various registers’. All this would be
extraordinary enough if it did not also have, hidden in the feet of the legs
that support the instrument at each end of the keyboard, springs to engage
the registers with ten stops to a pedal so that they can be operated
separately or together, with ‘movable lead knobs’ used to engage one or two
registers while the feet are operating the others. The registers are: (1) 4'
[ottavina], full register; (2) Archlute, full register; (3) Left hand harp,
half register with gut strings; (4) Left hand 4', half register; (5)
Archlute and 4', full register; (6) Harp and harpsichord, full register; (7)
Harpsichord sounding as flute, full register; (8) Right hand, 4', half
register; (9) Right hand, harp, half register with gut strings; and (10)
Harp, full register with gut strings. Sacchi relates that:
By chance the queen, in talking with Farinelli, mentioned that she would
like to have a harpsichord with more various tones [voci], and asked him if
he had ever seen such a one. He replied that he had not. But then, leaving
the queen without saying anything further, he consulted Fernández, whose
talent he knew, and after they had designed the work together and executed
it, he arranged for it to be found as a surprise by the queen in her
apartments.
This revolutionary instrument was thus the product of a passing
dissatisfaction on the part of Maria Barbara and the inspiration of a hugely
talented courtier and a great craftsman. If this is the harpsichord finally
made ‘expressive’ by its variety of registers, the devoted Scarlatti would
hardly have missed the opportunity to celebrate its invention with a pair of
pieces such as these; but the fact that a four-staff layout thereafter
disappears from the sources shows that the composer returned to composing
and organizing his work for his own harpsichord, one with an ever larger
range but solidly anchored to the standard sound. It was up to the
imagination and skill of the performer to reflect, in strictly idiomatic
terms, allusions, ranging from the obvious ones to the guitar and certain
fanfares that he imaginatively idealized, but also draw together musical
references to Christmas melodies that, as a child, Scarlatti had heard
Neapolitan bagpipers play. So, while Cristofori's and Fernández's
instruments remain legitimate and interesting options, Scarlatti's sound
world is firmly rooted in the instrument on which the young virtuoso had
called up the thousand devils which so astounded Roseingrave, and which now
allowed the aging maestro to interpret the songs of Iberian muleteers and
carriers in the variety of approaches that give the sonatas their
exceptional vitality.
The part played by melody in Scarlatti's keyboard interests is marginal,
given the prevalence of harmonic and rhythmic ideas in his harpsichord
music. The internal structure of the sonatas is a confirmation of what is
almost disavowal of melody, paradoxical for a Neapolitan but enormously
significant for a composer for whom the harpsichord held no secrets. It is
misleading to focus on the role of thematic elements when analysing the
sonatas: Scarlatti's approach is based rather on following the conventional
harmonic span of each binary piece. This was implicit in Kirkpatrick's shift
of interest towards the variety of accessory elements in the sonatas, in
which he proposed a distinction between the ‘closed sonata (in which both
halves begin with the same thematic material)’ and the ‘open sonata (in
which the thematic material that opens the first half is not used to open
the second)’. It is significant that his principal new idea was a form of
abstraction, linked more closely with tonal polarity than with the pedantic
enumeration of ‘themes’; this was the ‘crux’, which Kirkpatrick defined as
‘the meeting point in each half of the thematic material which is stated in
parallel fashion at the ends of both halves with the establishment of the
closing tonality’. The unconventional aspect invoked by Scarlatti in his
conversations with L'Augier should not be ascribed solely to the surprising
effects scattered like spices in the texture of the sonatas but also to the
fact that so many openings, seemingly promising thematic development, give
way immediately to as many ‘original and happy freaks’, based principally on
lively rhythmic ambiguities and harmonic manipulations (including those
acciaccaturas for which von Bülow implied a Shakespearean reference when he
invoked ‘a madness not without method’). There was in Scarlatti a sort of
manic obsession which can be linked to the Christian parable of the talents.
As L'Augier told Burney:
He used to say, that the music of Alberti, and of several other modern
composers, did not, in the execution, want a harpsichord, as it might be
equally well, or perhaps, better expressed by any other instrument; but, as
nature had given him ten fingers, and, as his instrument had employment for
them all, he saw no reason why he should not use them.
There is an implicit criticism here of transcriptions of music not
idiomatically suited to the harpsichord's capabilities. In 1756 the
compilation of the manuscripts was almost complete, and Scarlatti could look
with a certain detachment at the ‘transfers’ of his youth, even if possibly
some instrumental transcriptions of vocal music in the pathetic style and
elegantly decorated (k208, for example) escaped his censure. Now song and
melody were reserved for voices, and the composition of his gentle Salve
regina in the same year confirms such a decision. When the harpsichord
reclaims its melodic rights it comes in the incipits of some of the mature
sonatas (k544, 546), but the charm lasts only a few bars: soon harmonic
dialectic takes over and fingerwork fills the space left empty by Alberti
and his imitators.
3. Vocal works.
Scarlatti's first opportunity to engage in opera came with the appointment
of his uncle, Nicola Barbapiccola, as impresario of the Teatro S Bartolomeo,
Naples, for the 1703–4 season, when the young composer was called upon to
provide three operas, one of them an extensive revision of Pollarolo's
Irene. His main contribution to the genre, however, was made with the seven
operas he composed for Queen Maria Casimira in Rome between 1710 and 1714,
of which two survive complete in their original form and a third in the
version produced (as Narciso) in London in 1720. Too often dismissed as pale
imitations of his father's operas, they show several quite original traits
coupled with a keen dramatic sense. In ensembles, for instance, the
individual lines are often distributed in an easy, conversational style, and
the prescribed da capo is sometimes jettisoned in the interests of natural
expression. In the arias it is not uncommon for a character's indecision or
conflicting emotions to be conveyed through frequent changes of tempo and
dynamics (and sometimes of instrumentation). Some arias are designated alla
francese, and in others the voice is doubled throughout at the unison or
octave with no other accompaniment – a Venetian trait rarely, if ever, to be
found in Alessandro Scarlatti's works. The satirical farce La Dirindina,
intended as intermezzos for one of the two public operas that Domenico wrote
for Rome, is also unlike anything ever attempted by the elder Scarlatti.
Scarlatti seems not to have been employed as an opera composer after leaving
Rome in 1719, although he evidently continued to take an interest in the
genre and occupied his own box at Farinelli's productions for the Spanish
court. His interest in vocal composition did not, however, come to an end
with his appointment as music-master to Princess Maria Barbara in Lisbon. Of
the several serenatas he composed for the Portuguese court (and before that
for his Italian patrons), only two survive, both incomplete, but Contesa
delle stagioni especially, written to celebrate the birthday of Queen
Marianna on 7 September 1720, contains some of his finest, and grandest,
writing for voices and instruments.
The chamber cantata, of which just over 50 fully authenticated examples by
Scarlatti survive, was another genre which he cultivated with considerable
success. Those he wrote in Italy (most of them probably in Rome) are mainly
accomplished, though conventional, examples of the type of solo cantata in
which his father had excelled. Of more interest are two manuscripts (in A-Wn
and GB-Lbl) containing in all 18 cantatas dating almost certainly from
Scarlatti's Iberian years; some at least may have been sung by Farinelli at
the Spanish court. They show Scarlatti adopting many of the features –
predominantly major keys, a slow rate of harmonic change, numerous written
ornaments (particularly the slide) and Lombardic rhythms – associated with
operas by such composers as Conforto, Hasse and Jommelli that were performed
at the court.
It is difficult to arrive at even an approximate chronology for Scarlatti's
church music. Only a single work, the expressive Salve regina for soprano,
strings and continuo composed during the composer's last year, is dated in
the sources, but this is quite probably for private devotions rather than a
church composition. Most, if not all, of the other sacred pieces were
presumably written during those periods between 1708 and 1728 when Scarlatti
was employed as a church musician. Among the earliest, perhaps, are four
works that have remained in the archive of S Maria Maggiore ever since
Scarlatti wrote them in 1708–9. The antiphon Cibavit nos Dominus, possibly
intended for the feast of Corpus Christi in 1708, is one of Scarlatti's most
successful stile antico pieces; other works in this style include a
four-part mass which may have been Scarlatti's contribution to the
re-stocking of the royal palace library in Madrid after the fire of 1734.
Also among the S Maria Maggiore works is a mass, La stella, notable for its
stylistic dichotomy; the Credo and subsequent sections again exemplify the
stile antico, while the Kyrie and Gloria employ a kind of stile misto that
Scarlatti was to use to even greater effect in the best-known of all his
sacred works, the Stabat mater for ten voices and continuo.
It should occasion no surprise that Scarlatti's vocal music shows little of
the harmonic daring and few of the ‘happy freaks’ that characterize his
mature harpsichord sonatas. The keyboard music of this period – Scarlatti's
perhaps more than most – sprang directly from the composer's fingers in the
act of improvising. Vocal composition, on the other hand, was essentially a
considered art, subject to the demands of a text and governed by the rules
and traditions of ‘good composition’. The apparent gulf between Scarlatti's
vocal and keyboard styles can be observed also in the music of other
composers such as Byrd and Frescobaldi.
4. Reception.
Scarlatti's sonatas were circulated irregularly and only in part during
their composer's lifetime. In England, Roseingrave and others laid the
foundations for what Newton later described as the ‘English Cult of Domenico
Scarlatti’, a phenomenon that developed after the Essercizi, Roseingrave's
response and Avison's transcriptions had been published, and music which had
had a halo of myth and which later in the century was performed and valued
by Kelway, Worgan and Clementi, and imitated by Arne, Avison, William
Jackson and others, began to be disseminated. But the earliest publishing
ventures with Scarlatti's sonatas were in Paris, and it was there that the
Essercizi were reprinted, together with other sonatas, one of which (k95) is
unique to Boivin's edition. Apart from these indisputable signs of interest,
there is no information as to how the French public reacted to Scarlatti,
but it must have come as a shock to open a volume of Pičces choisies pour le
clavecin ou l'orgue and discover music so different from that by Dandrieu,
Dornel, Daquin or Corrette, to which keyboard players of the generation
after Couperin and Rameau were accustomed.
Although it has been said that there was no Italian Scarlatti cult, Abbé
Santini was able to acquire copies of hundreds of the sonatas and introduce
famous pianists to them, including Cramer and Liszt; these musicians took
great pleasure in reading old music direct from manuscript at the home of
the Roman collector – ‘especially pieces by Domenico Scarlatti, whose “Cat's
Fugue”, such an original and unusual masterpiece, was always one of the
favourite pieces of that select and intelligent band of listeners’. As a
result, some knowledge of Scarlatti's music and his style spread through the
Italian musical world, of which evidence can be found in references made by
such musicians as Rossini and Verdi.
In the first decades of the new century, it was Vienna that saw ventures
destined to bring about a fuller knowledge of Scarlatti's work. The
collection of the diplomat Joseph DuBeine included about 100 Scarlatti
sonatas, distributed in various volumes which on his death in 1814 were
auctioned and acquired by Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's pupil par
excellence. Between 1803 and 1807 eight volumes of sonatas were printed,
partly from DuBeine's collection. Clementi, a leading figure in the ‘English
Cult of Domenico Scarlatti’, was regularly in Vienna at that period in his
capacity as music dealer; he seems to have been responsible for inventing
the story of the ‘Cat's Fugue’ (k30), according to which the unusual theme
came from a kitten's random steps up the keyboard. It was also in Vienna, in
1839, that the publisher Haslinger and his pupil Czerny completed the
publication of as many as 200 sonatas.
In Germany, knowledge of Scarlatti's music may have been encouraged more by
the circulation of foreign publications than by that of the VI Sonate per il
cembalo solo published by Haffner about 1753. Did Bach know Scarlatti's
music? Assumptions that two pieces by Bach were derived from Scarlatti
models were ruled out by Kirkpatrick, but it has been suggested that the
Goldberg Variations 30 in number, are a response to the 30 Essercizi; Bach
may well have encountered the publication or one of its reprints (it is
worth remembering that the term Clavier-Übung, used by several composers
before Bach, is the equivalent of Essercizi per il gravicembalo). Other
German musicians demonstrated their admiration for Scarlatti: Quantz, who
met him in Rome in 1724, had been amazed by the perfection of his playing,
and Hasse remembered for Burney, half a century later, ‘a wonderful hand, as
well as fecundity of invention’, when he heard him in Naples, on a visit to
his elderly father. Scarlatti found no favour with two important exponents
of German Romanticism: Mendelssohn took offence at an observation by Rossini
after hearing one of his Charakteristische Stücke: ‘Ça sent la sonate de
Scarlatti!’ Schumann repeated a remark by a ‘brilliant composer’
(Mendelssohn?) that compared with the most gifted German composers Scarlatti
was ‘like a dwarf among the giants’. There is nationalism in the opposite
direction in a letter from Verdi to Ricordi (November 1864): after bemoaning
the exclusion of ‘the so-called Cat's Fugue’ from the Scarlatti items in an
anthology of old music: ‘with so strange a subject a German would have
created chaos, but an Italian made something as clear as the sun’. Hans von
Bülow prepared an edition of 18 sonatas, but in comparing Scarlatti with
Bach ruled that he was ‘not a genius but a talent of great significance’; he
illustrates the reasons that led him to eliminate the acciaccaturas, which
he thought created cacophony on the piano and offended the eye and ear
(precisely the freedoms of which Scarlatti boasted to L'Augier), and he also
retouched many ‘harmonic errors’. Nevertheless, von Bülow paradoxically
recognized Scarlatti's role as a precursor of Beethoven, since with him
‘humour and irony set foot for the first time in the realm of sound’. Brahms
collected Scarlatti manuscripts and studied the sonatas in depth: some
passages in the Second Piano Concerto seem to be influenced by the demanding
k299, and the quotation of k273 as the incipit of the song Unüberwindlich is
a clear act of homage.
As for the Iberian peninsula, the manuscripts studied by Boyd and Doderer
make it clear that the sonatas were not used exclusively by the composer's
royal pupils; the existence of Spanish copies which assign to the organ
pieces far from the austere idiom normally connected with the instrument
reveals an unusual and unexpected circulation of the composer's legacy.
A decisive step in bringing about a proper knowledge of Scarlatti's work was
taken at the beginning of the 20th century with the publication by Ricordi
of all the sonatas then known (545 of the 555 pieces later catalogued by
Kirkpatrick). This was done by Alessandro Longo, who took account of the
Venetian sources, some of the early editions and certain of the Viennese
manuscripts, but not the parallel series of manuscripts now in Parma (whose
existence was unknown) nor a pair of important volumes in England. Longo's
work is certainly dated; its principal defects derive from insufficient
knowledge of stylistic issues and matters of instrumental technique and
performing practice. Further, he followed his own whims in regrouping the
pieces into arbitrary ‘suites’ according to key. The credit for
re-establishing certain characteristics of the texts goes to Walter
Gerstenberg, who in 1933 carried out a rigorous comparison of the principal
sources, although he neglected to give sufficient emphasis to the grouping
into twos and threes, which his own scrupulous cataloguing had brought to
light. Ralph Kirkpatrick's study (1953) was the fruit of ten years of
careful research, added to the practical experience of an illustrious
harpsichordist. Thanks to Kirkpatrick, Scarlatti ceased to be an eccentric,
late product of the Baroque need for ‘marvels’ and his music received the
kind of critical attention which would see Schumann's unjust verdict set
aside. A new chronological ordering, realized through a regrouping of the
sonatas by genre, was proposed by Giorgio Pestelli (1967), whose
contribution had considerable value in establishing an appropriate historic
and stylistic context for Scarlatti. From 1970 the writings of Joel
Sheveloff have enlivened the critical debate with interventions of
remarkable polemical force and exemplary attention to detail, with a
perceptive interpretation of the sources. The most telling contribution
using Spanish sources has come from Malcolm Boyd, who has also provided a
determined, well-documented re-evaluation of the composer's vocal music.
Gerhard Doderer's contributions are concerned primarily with the
documentation of biographical data regarding Scarlatti's time in Portugal,
and also information on the instruments Scarlatti favoured.
The critical editions of the sonatas which Kirkpatrick hoped for are now a
reality. Kenneth Gilbert was responsible for completing the first (Paris,
1971–84), with a concise, balanced preface that focussed on the
interpretation of the sources. 1978 saw the beginning of a new Ricordi
critical edition, under Emilia Fadini, characterized by a more accurate
graphical reflection of the sources and a critical system based on detailed
comparisons. The Venetian manuscripts are accessible to scholars in a
facsimile edition (1985), as are the Essercizi (1967, 1977).


cut.
c'hai il RISM e il RILM
o qualche repertorio bio-bibliografico analogo in cd?
non mi dire che ricopii tutto dalla carta!
quanto costa?
(e soprattuto come fai ad averlo, escludendo che tu l'abbia potuto
comperare...)
alecs.

 gentilmente venirmi in soccorso?
boh, appare ad un certo punto in un libro di Saramago,
per il resto non saprei ...
ciao
Neil
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.libero.it

 Per le sue 555 sonate per clavicembalo :) (se ben ricordo....)
Concordo pienamente.
- Alberto

 per il resto non saprei ...
Non ci posso credere... sempre piů d&c...
d

 Non ci posso credere... sempre più d&c...
Davvero. Almeno indicare il titolo del libro. :-)) (Memoriale dal convento?)
JF

 comperare...)
sono abbonata al RISM, New Grove e altre schifezze on line.
Quando tu eri ancora nel tuo limbo e non frequentavi iamc, avevo avvertito
tramite post che, se qualcuno voleva info sporadiche, avrei provveduto
volentieri.
Visto che ce n'è già una che ha pagato (vero, giuro, e pure tanto!) , tanto
vale approfittarne.
Sì, lo so, anch'io mi stupisco di questi miei momenti di buon cuore e di
spartizione comune, modello kibutzaro.
Mi ammiro, va detto.
.-D
A.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:GdMy9.7895$XO.3...@news2.tin.it...

sì
A.