Domenico Scarlatti
Italian Baroque virtuoso who wrote 555 solo keyboard sonatas
1685
1757
Italian
Baroque
555 Keyboard Sonatas
Early life
Domenico Scarlatti was born on 26 October 1685 in Naples, the same year as Bach and Handel. His father, Alessandro Scarlatti, was the foremost opera composer in Italy and oversaw his early musical education. By the age of sixteen Domenico had been appointed organist and composer at the royal chapel in Naples. He spent his early career in Rome, where he served as maestro di cappella at the Cappella Giulia in Saint Peter's Basilica and reportedly engaged in a celebrated keyboard contest with Handel — the verdict being that Scarlatti was the superior harpsichordist while Handel excelled at the organ.
Career and major works
In 1719 Scarlatti moved to Lisbon, where he served as mestre de capela at the patriarchal chapel and music teacher to the Portuguese Infanta Maria Bárbara. When she married the Spanish heir Fernando in 1729, Scarlatti followed her to the Spanish court, first in Seville and then in Madrid, where he spent the rest of his life. It was during his decades in Iberia that he composed the vast majority of his 555 keyboard sonatas — single-movement works of astonishing variety, invention, and technical brilliance. These sonatas explore an extraordinary range of textures, harmonies, and effects: hand-crossing passages, rapid repeated notes, wide leaps, acciaccaturas that imitate the strumming of guitars, and harmonic clashes that anticipate developments centuries ahead of their time.
Musical style and legacy
Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas occupy a unique place in the repertoire: they are at once deeply rooted in the Baroque period and strikingly modern in their freedom and audacity. The Iberian influence — flamenco rhythms, folk-like melodies, and the sounds of castanets and guitars — gives much of this music a distinctive colour found nowhere else in the eighteenth century. Though overshadowed by Bach and Handel during his lifetime and for long after, the twentieth-century revival of harpsichord performance and the advocacy of pianists such as Vladimir Horowitz restored Scarlatti to his rightful prominence. He died in Madrid on 23 July 1757.