Scarlatti (Domenico) is a composer that I had pretty much ignored all my life, Somehow I had picked up the impression that he was pretty lightweight, at least in comparison with Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and their ilk. I had just learned one short Sonata on piano at grade 5 (L32), and I thought that it was harder work than it was worth musically. The few other pieces of his I had heard seemed like quite nice tunes, but rather simple and unsophisticated, repetitive, lacking depth, and given to superficially flashy special effects.

How wrong can you be!

A couple of months ago I was looking (on YouTube) at Michelangeli's and Horowitz 's versions of the first Chopin Ballade, and noticed that there were also videos of both of them playing Scarlatti sonatas.

Out of curiosity I watched Michelangeli playing L449 (Mistakenly listed as K449). Fantastic! Sublime! I decided right away that I had to learn it. (It turns out to be surprisingly difficult. The type of co-ordination and musical memory that it needs are subtly different from anything in the Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Debussy that make up most of my repertoire, or indeed of the dozen other composers that make up tiny bits of it)

The Horowitz videos were also impressive, less so initially than Michelangeli's, but Horowitz's interpretations grow on you. A bit more research turned up more virtuoso performances from Argerich (L141 - another "must learn"), and Pogorelich (amongst others, L23 - the source of a tune that most of us have heard somewhere).

I went looking for CDs but all I could find were collections played on the harpsichord and I much preferred them on piano. (I know - I could have gone to Amazon and found some straight away - sometimes my brain does not engage fully. Besides it is fun to browse in a real music shop)

Anyway, a fortnight ago a CD appeared in Utrecht's main classical music store, containing Horowitz's personal selection, for piano, of the 18 finest Scarlatti's Sonatas (from over 550 written). Of course the man had control, speed, and precision to die for, but that doesn't help if you don't have the material to work with.

Immediately a handful of the selection stunned me (L.118 and L.481, both in F minor) but I could not understand how some of the others had made it into the top 18. That became clear after three or four listenings. They are all rich and deep masterpieces.

Checking out the ABRSM syllabus, there is a handful of Scarlatti sonatas in the grade exams, none listed for DipABRSM, but - good news , there is a choice of five pairs on the LRSM syllabus. So that is a quarter of my recital programme taken care of, with something new and exciting!

This all set me thinking: Which other worthwhile composers do I know nothing about? If I could overlook a major star like Scarlatti for so long then who else am I missing out on?

The "major" composers are pretty much decided for us by the larger society, but the "big names", even though their number runs into dozens or hundreds, are only a tiny percentage of all the composers that have produced works of music over the last 4 or 5 centuries. There were, for example, many dozens of musicians in J S Bach's time, living lives similar to Bach's, tenured to a church position, or to an aristoctratic patron, composing, teaching, and playing, each of them producing a large body of work.

It is difficult to find out about many of them because there are not many recordings out there, printed scores are largely unavailable, no-one has bothered to write up theit life stories for the Internet, and many of them merit only a few lines in Musical Dictionaries and Histories.

But there may easily be "lost" masters of the calibre of Bach and Scarlatti (and Pachelbel, Purcell, Couperin, Handel, Rameau, Daquin, ...) amongst them!

Then of course there is the music of a few generations before Bach to re-discover. It has been decided for us that Palestrina, Monteverdi, Byrde, and Gibbons are worth remembering - there are CDs and printed editions of their work - but again there were many, many more musicians active alongside them.

It looks like I have been very unadventurous - as Robodoc said when he heard my selection for the DipABRSM (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff) - "not exactly pushing the boat out is it".

So what else have I been missing with my ultra-conservative outlook?

Just to say, congratulations on discovering Scarlatti! He was exactly contemporaneous with Bach, wasn't he, but his sound world is so different. If you like the Horowitz, you may well be captivated by Christian Zacharias, Pletnev, Sergei Babayon as well as Pogorelich, all on piano. (I got a bit addicted last year...) Have only just started to listen to the Youtube offerings but came across a lovely rendition of K87 by Spencer Myer. Naxos do several volumes at reasonable prices but of the two I have one leaves me cold wheras the other has an imaginative interpreter, can't remember offhand which.

I remember having a difference of opinion with Alfred Brendel on whether Scarlatti is better on piano or harpsichord (no, I don't know him well, I just went to talk to him at a reception because everyone else was too afraid to, and I like his poetry as well as his playing, so had an ice-breaker to hand) - he was firmly of the view that it was only harpsichord music; I like it just as much on piano, and after all, Scarlatti would have had access to early pianos too. I think his music is very special, and love it - the dynamic and impressive fast sonatas, the often rather sad slow ones, maybe reflecting the fact that he was far from home when writing? Much of it is anything but lightweight, as you've found.

It is difficult to find other material contemporary or pre-Scarlatti, other than the names you've mentioned - sometimes a player may make a study of a particular composer and perhaps record a bit, but it's always the way - recording companies want to sell music, and what sells is what people already know. Try the specialist baroque market though - there are some gems hidden away there, maybe not necessarily for keyboard, and almost certainly not for piano even if keyboard is included, but to give you an idea of who else was out there. I'm no fan of the themed selection sorts of recordings, you know, the ones called "In a garden of delyte" or whatever, but they do at least feature some of the less known composers.

I love Scarlatti His style really just seems to suit my playing, and I don't think I've ever had so much practise in crossing hands either! It's such energetic music. If I'm playing for family or friends, I've found they prefer me to play Scarlatti rather than Bach, although I enjoy both... but it says something.

I'm a bit tired and ready for bed to go into all my reasons now but no doubt I'll be back here soon full of praise

I was at a Scarlatti recital (harpsichord) last year in London, absolutely fantastic music! The lady sitting beside me turned to me after it was over and simply gasped "Fiendish!"

I'm a big Scarlatti fan anyway - due in no small part to the influence of my first piano teacher, so thanks you!

I too am a big fan of Scarlatti, I guess I have 40-50 of his Sonatas I play through form time to time.
But I do enjoy Bach as well, particularly the 'WTC' and his organ music

Do you think because in general Scarlatti sonatas sound "lighter" than much of Bach's work that people maybe underestimate the difficulty or dismiss it as not worth playing?

There's a pdf file relating to Scarlatti here by Todor Svetiev.

He suggests that wheras Bach provided a culmination of the previous musical tradition, Scarlatti was a catalyst for innovative piano. (Only he says it more elegantly!)

Interesting read.

Oh thank you - I was looking for something like that but couldn't find it! I'm researching baroque keyboard music at the mo so that will be very useful

Sure, yer welcome

While you're researching baroque keyboard, you might find these interesting also...

Baroque Music 3rd ed, Claude V Palisca, Prentice Hall - Not specifically keyboard, but has relevant chapters

Domenico Scarlatti, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Princeton paperbacks (somehow I'm guessing you already have this..? not exactly bedtime reading though)

A History of Classical Music, Richard Fawkes (again not specifically keyboard, but useful perhaps in a contextual framework?)

Yo Tomita from QUB also has a few essays etc, mainly relating to J. S. Bach, here...

Hope that helps.

Another excuse for a book buying spree

Not that I need one

Thanks!