Domenico Scarlatti
The keyboard master who put Spanish dance and guitar strumming under his hands
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Who he was
Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) was born in Naples, son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti. He worked in Italy, then followed Princess Maria Barbara of Braganza to Lisbon and later to Madrid, where he devoted his last years almost entirely to keyboard sonatas, writing more than five hundred.
His place
He was born in the same year as Bach and Handel but took a different road. Scarlatti wrote no Passions and only a handful of fugues; instead he packed Spanish court dance rhythms, guitar-like strumming and Italian operatic singing into a single harpsichord. His sonatas are mostly single-movement binary pieces, the most agile corner of eighteenth-century keyboard music.
What to hear
Listen first for repetition and transformation: a short motive bounces between left and right hand like two people snatching one sentence. Then hear dance in the keys: many rhythms come from the Spanish fandango and seguidilla, with accents that suddenly shift. Finally listen for wide leaps and crossing hands: Scarlatti makes the player cross hands, and the sound acquires space.
Key works
- Keyboard sonatas K. 27, K. 208, K. 491, K. 159
- Essercizi (1738)
- Early operas and sacred vocal music
Influence
Scarlatti's sonatas were rediscovered by Liszt and Chopin in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth became staples of period performance and piano teaching. He treated the keyboard as a theatre that can dance and joke, not a church.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 斯卡拉蒂生平、西班牙宫廷职位与 K 编号，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Scarlatti, Domenico"；本文为原创表述
- 键盘奏鸣曲的体裁与演奏特征，参通行斯卡拉蒂研究；实例 why 为本站听辨提示
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