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| The Musical Almanac ��by Kurt Nemes |  |
July 27. Domenico Scarlatti. Sonata in G Major, Longo 349
On October 26, 1685, Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, Italy. He is considered the father of modern piano playing as he invented the crossing of hands, rapid repetition of notes, and long arpeggio passages. I have written about two of his other pieces way back around the first of spring-Sonata in F Major, L. 188, and the Sonata in D Major, L.424.
Some of you might have noticed that I have failed in my original goal of writing about a different piece of music a day. For a while I was going to make the excuse that I simply wasn�t familiar with 365 pieces. However, since Scarlatti wrote over 600 sonatas for piano, and critics have said that only a few were duds, that excuse would not have worked. Still I don�t think it would have been fair to write just about Scarlatti. In fact, I�m only familiar with the 12 pieces that Horowitz recorded on his album, �Horowitz Plays Scarlatti,� which dates from the early 1960s. On the other hand, I could envision a web site devoted just to that composer, in which someone with more musical training than I would write an essay on each sonata. Any takers?
What has always struck me about Scarlatti is how meticulous and playful a composer he was. Today�s Sonata in G Major, Longo 349 demonstrates that as well as any I know. The right hand scurries about playing impossibly fast runs, punctuated and sometimes subdued by the more serious left. I get the image of a kitten playing tag with the tail of a large but benevolent golden retriever. There is so much sweetness in this music it is breathtaking.
In looking up Scarlatti�s biography, I was pleased to see he was from Naples, a city I lived in from 1980 to 1981. The people there have a passion for life that I have not found in many other places. How fitting that Scarlatti came from there.
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