Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was born on October 26, 1685, and died on July 23, 1757. He was an Italian composer who lived during the Baroque period. His music helped shape the Classical style. He was the son of Alessandro Scarlatti, a famous composer. Both father and son wrote music in many different forms. However, Giuseppe is best known for his 555 keyboard sonatas. He worked for the royal families of Portugal and Spain for most of his life.

Life and career

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, which was part of the Kingdom of Naples and belonged to the Spanish Empire. He was born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was the sixth of ten children of Alessandro Scarlatti, a composer and teacher. His older brother, Pietro Filippo, was also a musician.

Scarlatti studied music with his father. Details about his early education are unclear, but he may have also studied with Gaetano Greco, Francesco Gasparini, and Bernardo Pasquini. In 1701, he was appointed as a composer and organist at the Chapel Royal of Naples. He briefly worked under his father, who was the chapel’s maestro di cappella. In 1703, he revised an opera called Irene for performance in Naples. Soon after, his father sent him to Venice.

There is little known about his life until 1709, when he went to Rome and began working for Marie Casimire, an exiled Polish queen. She hired him as her maestro di cappella, and he composed music for operas and serenatas. Some of these works, including Tolomeo e Alessandro (1711) and Amor d'un'ombra e gelosia d'un'aura (1714), were written for the queen’s private theatre. He also created religious music, such as a Stabat Mater for ten voices. When the queen ran out of money and left Italy, Scarlatti became a musical director at the Julian Chapel at St. Peter’s from 1714 to 1719.

In 1719, he traveled to London to direct Amor d'un'ombra e gelosia d'un'aura, which was performed under the title Narciso at the King’s Theatre. While in Rome, he met Thomas Roseingrave, who later described Scarlatti’s harpsichord skills to Charles Burney. Scarlatti was already a skilled harpsichordist. A story tells of a competition with George Frideric Handel at the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome, where Scarlatti was judged to be better than Handel on the harpsichord but less skilled on the organ. Later in life, he showed respect for Handel’s abilities.

In September 1719, Scarlatti left his position at the Vatican. According to Vicente Bicchi, the Papal Nuncio in Portugal at the time, Scarlatti arrived in Lisbon on November 29, 1719. There, he became the musical director for King John V of Portugal and taught music to the king’s younger brother, Don Antonio, and Princess Maria Magdalena Barbara. He also likely met Carlos Seixas, a 16-year-old musician at the court.

Scarlatti left Lisbon on January 28, 1727, and returned to Rome, where he married Maria Caterina Gentili on May 6, 1728. She was 16, and he was 42. They had six children together. In 1729, he moved to Seville, where he lived for four years.

In 1733, he traveled to Madrid as a music teacher for Princess Maria Barbara, who later became Queen of Spain. He stayed in Spain for the rest of his life. After his first wife died in 1739, he married Anastasia Maxarti Ximenes, a Spanish woman, and had four more children. During his time in Madrid, he composed most of the 555 keyboard sonatas for which he is best known. In 1738, he published his only musical work, Essercizi per Gravicembalo, which included 30 keyboard sonatas.

Scarlatti became friends with Farinelli, a famous castrato singer from Naples who also had royal patronage in Madrid. Ralph Kirkpatrick, a music historian and harpsichordist, noted that Farinelli’s letters provide much of the direct information about Scarlatti that is known today.

Scarlatti died in Madrid at the age of 71. His home at 35 Calle de Leganitos is marked with a historical plaque, and his descendants still live in Madrid. He was buried at a convent there, but his grave no longer exists.

A minor planet, numbered 6480, is named after him in his honor.

Music

During his lifetime, only a few of Scarlatti's compositions were published. Scarlatti himself helped with the publication of his most famous collection in 1738, called the 30 Essercizi (Exercises). These works were widely appreciated across Europe and were praised by Charles Burney, an important English music writer of the 18th century. Burney noted that Joseph Kelway, a harpsichordist, was the leader of a group of English musicians who supported Scarlatti as early as 1739. This group also included Thomas Roseingrave.

Many of Scarlatti's sonatas were not published during his lifetime. Over the past 250 years, these sonatas have been printed irregularly. Scarlatti has been admired by many notable musicians, including Béla Bartók, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Pieter-Jan Belder, Johann Sebastian Bach, Muzio Clementi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Czerny, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Emil Gilels, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Enrique Granados, Marc-André Hamelin, Vladimir Horowitz, Ivo Pogorelić, Scott Ross (the first person to record all 555 sonatas), Heinrich Schenker, András Schiff, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Scarlatti composed 555 keyboard sonatas, most of which are single movements and written in binary form or early sonata form. These sonatas were mostly written for the harpsichord or early pianofortes. Four sonatas were written for the organ, and a few were for small instrumental groups. Some sonatas use unusual harmonic progressions and unexpected key changes.

Although Scarlatti wrote over 500 sonatas, his works vary greatly in style and mood. Some are serious, while others are light or humorous. Some resemble court dances, while others sound like street songs. This ability to express a wide range of styles is a key feature of Scarlatti's music. Another characteristic is his ability to blend different musical forms or styles.

Other notable features of Scarlatti's music include:
– The influence of Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) folk music, such as the use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal elements unfamiliar to European art music. Many of his musical patterns and dissonances resemble those of the guitar.
– The influence of the Spanish guitar, seen in repeated notes.
– A structural technique where each half of a sonata leads to a pivotal point, called the "crux" by Kirkpatrick. This point is sometimes marked by a pause or fermata. Before the crux, Scarlatti's sonatas often include their main thematic variations, while after the crux, the music uses repetitive patterns as it moves away from or returns to the home key.
– A tendency to follow the galant style.

In 1953, Kirkpatrick published an edition of the sonatas, and the numbering system from this edition (Kk. or K. numbers) is now commonly used. Before this, the numbering system from Alessandro Longo's 1906 edition (L. numbers) was more common. Kirkpatrick's numbering is chronological, while Longo's was based on arbitrary groupings into "suites." In 1967, Giorgio Pestelli revised the catalogue (using P. numbers), correcting some anachronisms and adding sonatas missing from Kirkpatrick's edition. Although the exact dates of composition for these sonatas are unknown, Kirkpatrick believed they were likely written late in Scarlatti's career, after 1735, with most possibly composed after the composer's 67th birthday.

In addition to his sonatas, Scarlatti composed operas, cantatas such as the cantata da camera Che vidi oh ciel, che vidi, and liturgical pieces. Well-known works include the Stabat Mater of 1715 and the Salve Regina of 1756, which is believed to be his final composition.

Selected discography

• L'Œuvre pour clavier – Scott Ross (1988, 34 CDs, Erato / Radio France) OCLC 725539860, 935869199
• Domenico Scarlatti: The Complete Sonatas – Richard Lester, harpsichord and fortepiano (2001–2005, 39 CDs in 7 volumes, Nimbus Records NI 1725/NI 1741) OCLC 1071943740
• Keyboard Sonatas – Emilia Fadini, Ottavio Dantone, Sergio Vartolo, Marco Farolfi, Enrico Baiano…, harpsichord, fortepiano, organ (1999–2012, 12 CDs, Stradivarius) – currently in progress
• Keyboard Sonatas – Pieter-Jan Belder, harpsichord and fortepiano (2012, 36 CDs, Brilliant Classics)
• Keyboard Sonatas – Carlo Grante, Bösendorfer Imperial piano (2009–2020, 35 CDs in 6 volumes, Music & Arts)

• 2 Sonatas: Sonata K. 9 and Sonata K. 380 – Dinu Lipatti, piano (20 February and 27 September 1947, EMI / 12 CDs, Hänssler PH17011)
• 4 Sonatas: Sonata K. 1, Sonata K. 87, Sonata K. 193, and Sonata K. 386 – Clara Haskil, piano (? 1947, BBC / « Inédits Haskil » Tahra TAH 389 / TAH 4025)
• 11 Sonatas: Sonata K. 1, Sonata K. 35, Sonata K. 87, Sonata K. 132, Sonata K. 193, Sonata K. 247, Sonata K. 322, Sonata K. 386, Sonata K. 437, Sonata K. 515, Sonata K. 519 – Clara Haskil, piano (October 1951, Westminster / DG 471 214-2)
• 3 Sonatas: Sonata K. 87, Sonata K. 193, and Sonata K. 386 – Clara Haskil, piano (October 1951, Philips)
• The Siena Pianoforte: 6 Scarlatti sonatas (and 3 sonatas of Mozart) – Charles Rosen, Siena piano (1955, Counterpoint / Esoteric / Everest Records CPT 53000)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas – Vladimir Horowitz (1946–1981, Complete Recordings, RCA / Sony Classical)
• 37 Piano Sonatas