Domenico Scarlatti Complete Sonatas Pieter Jan Belder [vol.11 & 12 From 12]

One of the most extraordinary achievements on disc in the last quarter-century…Wherever you dip into them, the sense of stylishness, energy and, especially, Ross's affection for Scarlatti's boundless harmonic and rhythmic imagination is obvious. It's a constant, almost inexhaustible joy.

Actus Tragicus The words ‘art of dying’ sound strange to modern ears, perhaps. Although there are related philosophical, religious and ‘end of life’ health care, and much-debated legal concerns today surrounding the subject of dying, we moderns probably rarely, if ever, think of preparing for death as an art form. A central topic in sermons, hymns and contemplative literature, death and dying was a chief pastoral concern of the church of Johann Sebastian Bach’s day. Finding consolation and facing fears and anxieties near the time of death, and also as a part of everyday living, are arguably at the heart of the sacred vocal works of Bach, who is regarded by many as a kind of theologian in music.

"Scarlatti" is the new album from the internationally renowned pianist Lucas Debargue. This stunning new album features 52 beautiful sonatas by Scarlatti—often considered ne of the most influential composers of the Baroque era. Debargue started taking piano lessons at the age of 11. At the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition , Debargue was awarded the coveted Moscow Music Critic’s Prize. Debargue has performed at numerous prestigious music venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic hall , Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw. Debargue has won many awards including the highly regarded Echo Klassik award in 2017.

The biggest surprise on this wonderfully exuberant and exhilarating disc comes with the very first notes: the piano tone is rich and full, worlds away from the slightly distant, musical-box tone that is often thought appropriate for recordings of Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas on a modern concert grand. But as the soundworld suggests, Tharaud is totally unapologetic about playing these pieces – all originally composed for harpsichord even though the earliest fortepianos were in circulation in Scarlatti's time – on a piano. In the sleevenotes, Tharaud says that of the four baroque keyboard composers that he has recorded so far – Bach, Couperin, Rameau and now Scarlatti – it's the last whose music is most suited to this treatment. His selection of sonatas is chosen for maximum variety, with a group in which the Spanish inflections of flamenco and folk music can be heard, others in which he gets a chance to show some dazzling technique, alongside those in which the playfulness is replaced by profound introspection.

This offering from the combined forces of Musica Amphion and the Gesualdo Consort is presented as a hardback book with a CD tucked into the back cover. It is the second in the Bach in Context series. The aim of the project is to present Bach’s works in a liturgical format. The book goes to considerable lengths to explain Lutheran liturgy and how Bach’s compositions would have fitted into a Sunday morning service, thus presenting a prelude, cantata, choral, motet, choral and postlude - in this case the fugue. The performers also give concerts using this format.

The Prelude and Fugue in E Minor forms a frame, as it did in Bach’s time, around this program, designed to fit the liturgical format that gave Bach’s music its purpose; the Fantasia precedes the motet on which it is based and follows Cantata BWV 64, which quotes the fifth stanza of Johann Franck’s poem “Jesu, meine Freude.” The recording was made in the Arnstadt church where Bach served from 1703 to 1707 (the 1699 organ has recently been restored), but the two cantatas and the motet date from his first year in Leipzig. This impressive presentation, the first in a series called Bach in Context, is a hardbound book of 84 pages. The notes favor Joshua Rifkin’s understanding of one voice to a part in Bach’s vocal/choral music, the use of a harpsichord as well as the church organ (not the more versatile chest organ), and the liturgical context in which the music was originally sung.

“It was with Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord, on an old black record, that I first heard the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. My favourites were those that showed some Spanish influence: that rugged pride, those implacable rhythms, that mad vitality, what splendour! I have chosen mostly sonatas that are joyful or humorous in character, though among them I have slipped two little masterpieces of miraculous simplicity (K32, K40) as well as a few compelling meditations (K8, K69, K144). Wandering from nostalgia to sorrow, as though improvised, these last, void of any pathos, are yet bathed in the radiant beauty of the sunny climes of Italy and Spain.” Alice Ader