One of Scarlatti's main pupil's was the queen of spain and I read that she was in posession of many of Cristifori's Fortepianos, which had a dynamic range. Wouldn't Scarlatti have come in contact with these pianos? Is it not possible that he wrote some sonatas for that instrument. This would justify adding dynamics to the music although it would not justify the use of a damper pedal, since those piano's didn't have them.
What keyboard instruments were the sonatas originally written for? And perhaps, to which instruments are they ideally suited?
1. Did Scarlatti owned a keyboard instrument (or several like J. S. Bach), or he simply played on what his Royal patrons made available to him?
It is not known.
When Scarlatti died, seven inventories regarding his state were made. Unfortunately five of those are lost. On the two surviving ones no mention is made of any instrument of any kind. If the missing inventories are ever recovered, then we may find out more.
2. What keyboard instruments were available to him at the Portuguese/Spanish courts?
Farinelli (the famous castrato – there is a very good movie about him – who was the Spanish Court director of music, and therefore Scarlatti´s boss) owned several keyboard instruments which he played: Several harpsichords made in different coutries, and a pianoforte (his favorite keyboard instrument according to Burney, who visited Farinelli after his retirement). This was not a Cristofori, but a Urbino (made in 1730 in Florence by Ferrini – a disciple of Cristofori). His second favourite instrument was a harpsichord (made in Spain) presented to him by the Queen of Spain (so we may well speculate that Scarlatti may have owned an instrument as well, since if the Queen was to favour Farinelli, why not her personal keyboard teacher?). A third favourite was a harpsichord (made in Spain under Farinelli´s directions) with moveable keys, so that he could play in any key without the need to transpose.
The Queen herself had several keyboard instruments – which would have been in her apartments in her several palaces and on which she – and Scarlatti - would have played the sonatas. According to her testament these were:
12 Keyboard instruments: 7 harpsichords of different makers and 5 pianofortes made in Florence (either by Cristofori or by his disciple Ferrini). Interestingly, 2 of these pianos had been turned back into harpsichords.
The harpsichords varied in range of notes: the one with the smallest range had keys, and the largest range was on a Spanish harpsichord with 61 keys. (five octaves).
The pianos ranged from 49 to 56 keys (four octaves and a half).
Now if we look at the sonatas, most of the later, highly developed sonatas require a full five octave range, so they would not be playable on the Queen´s pianos (the same is true of several of the harpsichords). In fact, the only instruments where these particular sonatas could have been played were in the three Spanish harpsichords with 61 keys (in the palaces of Buen Retiro, Aranjuez and Escorial).
Most of the sonatas can be played equally well in a one or two manual harpsichord (exceptions: K 21 – K48 – K106 – K109 – K110 – K535 – K554 – but even these few pieces can be played on a one manual instrument if necessary).
Scarlatti (like Bach) may have been disappointed with the early pianos at his disposal – at that point the harpsichord had more orchestral colours than the piano, so he certainly favoured the harpsichord – the main evidence for that is that his most elaborate sonatas all cover 5 octaves – and no piano available to him had that range.
However, it is equally certain that he experimented with the pianos, and there are a number of sonatas that seem peculiarly different, and that might as well have been originally intended for the pianofortes: K 148 – K149 – K150 – K151 – K152 – K153 – K154 – K155 (simplified bass line, range within the piano range).
“On grounds of style it is almost impossible to draw a definite borderline between mid-eighteenth century harpsichord music and music for the early piano” (Kirkpatrick).
Finally, Scarlatti also wrote some sonatas specifically for organ (K254 - K 255 - K287 – K288 – K328) and some that can be played on both organ and harpsichord (K41 – K58 – K93)
There is no evidence that Scarlatti used a clavichord.
All of the above is not to say that Scarlatti should not be played on the piano (the modern piano is a very different animal from a Cristofori piano). In fact I myself much prefer the sound of Scarlatti on the piano than on the harpsichord.
(Source for the information above: Ralph Kirkpatrick: “Domenico Scarlatti” – Princeton - highly recommended for anyone interested in Scarlatti).
Best wishes,
Bernhard.