Scarlatti

[kerry]

Thank you Bernhard. I have been having a lovely time playing Scarlatti but cannot find a lot of the Sonatas. Could anyone help me with finding K208 and K481.  I have purchased three books  and would love to be able to get these from the internet.  I have had no luck so far.

[schnabels_grandson]

I have them all!  Muahahaha...

[bernhard]

How would you like to get ALL Scarlatti sonatas plus ALL Haydn sonatas for less than US$ 20? (That's over 2500 pages of music!)

It all comes in a CD from CD Sheet music.

Check their Website:

https://www.cdsheetmusic.com/

But there is a catch.

Here is the problem:

The original autographs of Scarlatti sonatas have been lost (if they are ever discovered they will be musical finding of the millennium). The source for the present editions are the copies Scarlatti made for the Queen of Spain (formerly a Portuguese princess whom Scarlatti taught from her teenage years, and who took Scarlatti to Spain with her when she married the Spanish future king). These copies were bequeathed to Farinelli (the castrato who was Music director at the Spanish Court). Farinelli eventually returned to Italy and took the bounded copies with him. There they were completely forgotten until Italian pianist Alessandro Longo rediscovered them in the early 1900s. He proceeded to organise and edited them, and gave them numbers (hence “L” numbers).

In the 1950s, harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick made a thorough review of the sonatas (much new stuff about Scarlatti as well as new copies had appeared since Longo’s work) and was able to order all the sonatas in chronological order (Longo’s order seems to be random). Hence the “k” numbers. He also proposed that the sonatas were meant to be played in pairs, and some of them in threes. (Although most pianists ignore this – Andras Schiff  is the only one I have come accross who actually pairs sonatas – and Meiting!).

Everyone agrees that Kirkpatrick’s edition of the sonatas is to be preferred to the Longo edition. Unfortunately, the CD sheet music I suggested is the Longo edition (and it follows the Longo numbering system, so you will need a cross index between L and K numbers – there are some sites that have them, and you can find one in the book “Domenico Scarlatti – Master of music” by Malcolm Boyd). To complicate matters further since Kirkpatrick two other sholars have published their own ordering of the sonatas: Emilia Fadini (F numbers) and G. Pestelli (P numbers).

Both Kalmus and Ricordi have published the complete sonatas (Longo) and Schirmer has also published them (Kirpatrick – edited by Kenneth Gilbert).

Henle is in the process of publishing the Urtext but as far as I know there are only selected sonatas available at the moment.

I myself use the CD sheet music, and go after the Henle and Kirkpatrick only for the specific sonatas I play. I find the Longo edition perfectly acceptable (although purists may squirm).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[kerry]

Bernhard  marry me!!  I think you are wonderful and I am grateful for your help.  I think we should start a fan club for you. I have been to the music library today and came home with all the Scarlatti sonatas.  I would like to lock myself away and play the piano for the next week. It is such a joy to discover this music.  I am looking forward to teaching Scarlatti  to my students. The first thing I do when I connect to the forum is to look and see if you have posted anything.  Big big thank you. best wishes Kerry

[bernhard]

Bernhard  marry me!!  

I better not let my wife see that!

Yes, Scarlatti is wonderful. I cannot understand why people bother with the likes of Czerny, Pischna, Beyer etc. when they can get all that and much more from playing Scarlatti sonatas.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[claudio]

in case this has not been mentioned yet. you can download some 176 sonatas
from scarlatti at:

https://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Scarlatti.html

[Floristan]

Thank you, Claudio! 

[galonia]

I never liked Scarlatti before, but now I have realised that's because I was one of those children who murdered his music.

I am now reformed.   

[Ed Thomas]

Thanks for the pointers to downloads.  I've wanted the K1 (L366) for a long  (Longo?) time and never managed to snag it before.   It is everything I'd hoped it would be.  Which leads me to some questions.

1)  In my downloaded copy, there is no indication to repeat each movement.  Is this just understood; that it was common practice?

2)  In general, when you repeat, especially when everyone KNOWS you are going to do that, what do you do with the second time through?  Left to my own devices, I rummage around for inner themes or the other outer theme and nudge that to the front a little bit.  But I sometimes feel a little uncomfortable.  As though someone listening could be thinking:  "Okay already.... we just heard this.... go on ... go on ..."

[bernhard]

1)  In my downloaded copy, there is no indication to repeat each movement.  Is this just understood; that it was common practice?

The download you have is the John Sankey edition. It is a very interesting edition for several reasons – mostly because he makes a point to show which bit is to be played with the LH (diamond head notes) and which is to be played with the RH (round heads). Personally I think his crossing of hands (which by the way is just his opinion – there is no evidence that this is how Scarlatti played them – on the other hand there is no evidence that he didn’t play this way) is exaggerated at times. Have a look here where he puts forward his case:

https://www.sankey.ws/scarlattimus.html

The best editions in my opinion are the ones by Ralph Kirkpatrick for Schirmer (unfortunately incomplete – he just cover 60 sonatas) and the one by Kenneth Gilbert (for Le Pupitre – Heugel; based on Kirkpatrick’s facsimiles). In both these editions there are repeat signs after each part of the sonatas.

In any case, I strongly suggest you compare Sankey’s edition with the Kenneth Gilbert one.

So to answer your question: yes, you are supposed to repeat each part.

2)  In general, when you repeat, especially when everyone KNOWS you are going to do that, what do you do with the second time through?  Left to my own devices, I rummage around for inner themes or the other outer theme and nudge that to the front a little bit.  But I sometimes feel a little uncomfortable.  As though someone listening could be thinking:  "Okay already.... we just heard this.... go on ... go on ..."

Music is a fleeting phenomenon. It can only exist in time. And if you are not paying attention it is gone – contrary, say, to a painting which you can just sit and look at it for ages. So music is of necessity tremendously repetitive – so that you can ingrain some of it. So many times a repeat is just that: a repetition to allow you the opportunity to listen to the music again. (Sometimes we do wish that the music keeps going on and on... )

It is now pretty much established that in Baroque music, the repeat is also an opportunity for the performer to improvise ornamentation. So, the first time around you play it without ornaments, or just the ornaments written by the composer. The second time around you are free to add your own ornamentation. If the piece is motivically based (as most Baroque pieces are) and, for instance, retrogrades overlap with the motif, you may choose to call attention to the motif in the first time and then on the repeat bring up the retrogrades instead.

This means a lot of score analysis – always a worthwhile and profitable activity.

Also remember that in Baroque music, dynamics and tempo are of less importance as expressive tools then articulation. So be prepared to devote a lot of time to articulation decisions. Unfortunately none of the baroque composers left much in the way of written instructions, or articulation directions in their pieces. Not only the knowledge was taken for granted, and therefore obvious to their contemporary musicians (so it did not need to be written down) as it was believed to be the province of the performer rather than the composer.

Also, have a look here for more discussion on Scarlatti sonatas.

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2339.msg20064.html#msg20064


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Ed Thomas]

Thank-you, Bernhard.  That helps tremendously.  I read the other thread before and just re-read it at your suggestion.  Perhaps my only complaint is that I now feel responsible to make the most of your advice since you took the time to give it.  Dang.

I didn't even notice the funny shaped notes that you described.  In fact, I was half way through typing this before I actually detected the difference.  I'd attributed it to lousy copy at first.    Fortunately, in K1, it isn't much of an issue anyway.  I'm printing out some of the others on your list of favorites and will be exploring them shortly.