No one casts a larger shadow over eighteenth century Spanish keyboard music than the Italian Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). His sonatas written after 1729 are full of imitations of the guitar, and folk tunes with their distinctive rhythms, harmonies and shifts between major and minor. Scarlatti’s genius is that his music preserves the intensity of its provincial elements while raising them to the level of high art. Before Scarlatti, Spanish keyboard music was mainly in the sacred contrapuntal tradition inherited from Cabezon and Cabanilles. After Scarlatti, the spinning out of contrapuntal material or sets of variations were abandoned for the Scarlatti model of secular sonata in binary form, often in sets of two or three by key.
Two of the most remarkable Spanish keyboard composers of the generation after Scarlatti are Padre Antonio Soler (1727-1783) and Manuel Blasco de Nebra (1750-1784), while the music of Juan Sesse (1736-1801) represents the sort of Spanish keyboard music that escaped the influence of Domenico Scarlatti.
The harpsichord used for this recording was built by John Phillips in 1993 and is based on mid-eighteenth century Florentine models, the cousins of the lost Spanish originals.
Listen to Track No. 1
From: Magnatune
