Reddit Reddit reviews Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas

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Classical
Chamber Music
Styles
Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas
Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti (2005-05-27)
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3 Reddit comments about Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas:

u/ashowofhands · 3 pointsr/LetsTalkMusic

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
The weather's finally getting warm, and Grace Potter is one of my top "warm weather music" artists. Almost straight-ahead Blues-y/Rock-and-Roll stuff. I've been listening to This Is Somewhere (2007) and their self-titled album (2009) all week - two of my favorite albums.

My introduction to Grace Potter was several years ago, I was still in high school, and a classmate of mine approached me (along with some other musicians) asking us to back her singing Some Kind of Ride. I was like "hey, this is really good" and started exploring further. The band plays with energy, Grace is one hell of a singer and she's also awesome when she's behind the keyboard.

Almost everything they've put out is stellar, and I believe all of it is on Spotify. I'm not a fan of The Lion, The Beast, The Beat (2012) which has a completely new/different, more pop-driven sound to it, but there are still some good tracks there. Other favorite songs aside from the ones already mentioned include Here's to the Meantime, Oasis, Colors, and Nothing But the Water, off the 2005 album of the same title.

Domenico Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonatas

Scarlatti lived from 1685-1757, roughly the same dates as J.S. Bach (Bach died 7 years earlier). For the last few decades of his life, he wrote exclusively for the keyboard - in his time, the keyboard instrument of choice was the harpsichord, although there is speculation that some of his later sonatas may have been intended for the clavichord (youtube, wikipedia). He wrote over 550 sonatas for the keyboard, and although only 30 of them saw publication during his lifetime, the rest have since been cataloged and published in multiple editions.

I'm playing two well-known sonatas on my senior piano recital program in a couple weeks - K.87, B minor and K.380, E major. While learning and practicing these pieces for the last few months, I've accidentally become obsessed with Scarlatti's keyboard output - I invested in harpsichordist Scott Ross' box set recording of Scarlatti's entire keyboard output. The performances are good (not my favorite for a lot of them, but pretty spectacular for a complete works edition by a single performer), and the set comes with an informative booklet. In addition to just the music, I've also been studying baroque performance practice, the differences between playing baroque pieces on the piano versus the harpsichord, etc. I'm not a fan of much baroque music - there is some Bach that grabs my attention, and the French baroque composers (Francois and Louis Couperin, Rameau) grab my attention - but there is something about the purity and clarity in Scarlatti's writing that is very attractive.

My favorite harpsichordist, for Scarlatti and indeed everything else he's played, is Ottavio Dantone. He is a master of added ornamentation, an important part of harpsichord playing. Here he is playing K. 47, B-flat major, a technically challenging but light-hearted sonata, and K.79-80, a dance-like piece. He has four volumes of Scarlatti recordings up on Spotify that are all worth a listen if you like what you hear. Here is a compilation of the 30 sonatas that saw production during Scarlatti's lifetime, with performances by Dantone and Pieter-Jan Belder, whose complete Scarlatti cycle is also available on Spotify.

For piano recordings, you can't go wrong with Horowitz's (previously linked), or Ivo Pogorelich's single disc of Scarlatti sonatas, released on DG in the 1980s.

[Frankie Valli and] the Four Seasons

Probably no need for extensive introduction here - big pop group in the '60s/'70s and still recently (currently?) active. I heard Can't Take My Eyes Off You in the store a few days ago and that got me on a kick.

What's interesting about this particular little musical kick for me is that I am used to listening in albums, but The Four Seasons are very much a singles band. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's just a little bit of an adjustment. But, at least the early singles I've been listening to the most, have that distinctive '60s flavor to them. I'm not one to say that "music sucks today, not like the '60s", at all...but I still appreciate older music for what it is. It makes you want to just jump into a muscle car and cruise.

Other favorites have been Rag Doll, Opus 17 (the one with like a million modulations), Bye Bye Baby.

u/EmperorOfMeow · 2 pointsr/classicalmusic
u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/classicalmusic

The British pianist Stephen Hough has recorded a lot of Liszt's works, those recordings come highly recommended from me if you want more Liszt:
Ballades, Polonaises, and the B minor Sonata here.
The first suite from the Années de pèlerinage [here]
(http://www.amazon.com/Liszt-Ann%C3%A9es-p%C3%A8lerinage-Suisse-Franz/dp/B000A0HFXU).
Also, since I saw a few mentions of harpsichord music lower down and since it is a favorite of mine, American harpsichordist Scott Ross' recording of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas (selection from the recording of all 555) here.
And the complete recording, expensive but worth every cent here.