Dear all,
I'm preparing a very nice piece by Scarlatti (the Allegro from his Sonata in d minor), a set piece for Grade 6 (List A).
This is in 6/8 rhythm and the teaching notes say that the piece has an attractive tilt which gives it a dance-like chatracter and this must be rendered fully.
Now, the LH 3-quaver groups are definitely staccato or, at best, slightly detached as they seem to imittate the strings' pizzicato to mark the rhythm, but as far as the RH goes, on the ABRSM CD I seem to hear that in many of the 3-quaver groups the first two are slurred and the 3rd detached, thus achieving a legato/staccato effect (sounding much like "para - pa - para - pa - para - pa", if this conveys the idea. I learnt it that way on the basis of what I heard - or seemed to hear - on the CD. Now my teacher says that Scarlatti is a "clavicembalista" and that all the quavers should be slightly detached thus making the RH sound more like instead of the "pa - pa - pa - pa - pa ". This seems to be a minor detail but the piece changes quite coticeably if all - or most - of the quavers are detached.
The teaching notes only say that the trills must be slurred and the ornaments as well but dynamics, articulation, etc are left to the player (that's what's written in the footnote of the ABRSM selected pieces as well). I am planning to take Grade 6 in 2010 but would very much like to know your views as learning it the "right" way will save me lots of time. Thanks, all of you!

There is no one "right way". Many interpretations are possible. Scarlatti left it up to you to decide!

Ah, Scarlatti is such a nice guy!!!

I was trying out this piece a couple of months ago, and my teacher had a mixture of pa-pa-pa and para-pa here and there.

Maybe you want to listen to different interpretations to get some more ideas?

I think at Grade 6, it starts to get interesting for adult learners (at least for myself), because we can discuss with the teacher