Domenico Scarlatti Complete Sonatas Brilliant Classics 36cd

In 2007 the Dutch harpsichordist Pieter-Jan Belder finished his recording of all the keyboard sonatas in sequential order for the label Brilliant Classics. Ditto Richard Lester, for the Nimbus label. The Naxos label is currently working on a project to record all of Scarlatti's sonatas on the piano, with each disc taken by a different pianist. The Italian Stradivarius label's Scarlatti sonata project, mostly recorded with harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone, currently stands at volume 10. According to an official at the label, there are talks to continue with the project

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.

Domenico Scarlatti is a great composer disguised as a mediocre one. Part of the disguise is that he’s a formulaic miniaturist. It’s easy to dismiss his sonatas with the airy notion that if you’ve heard a few of them, you’ve heard them all. So pianists usually dispatch them as twee appetizers, played with a wink and a smirk, setting the table for meatier fare. But such dismissal dissolves under the sheer inventiveness of the sonatas. Like the protagonist in Ilse Aichinger’s “The Bound Man,” Scarlatti finds endless possibilities within his self-imposed confines.

Asked what music she wanted to play on her second solo album, she shot back: "Scarlatti!". And yet Claire Huangci is known as a consummate interpreter of highly virtuosic music. But even when reviewing her debut CD of tricky Russian ballet transcriptions, Ingo Harden in Fono Forum had this to say: "Over and above the seemingly effortless and euphonious realization of her programme, her playing has an amazingly wide spectrum of nuances in touch. Even a seasoned performer with decades of experience can hardly offer us a more imaginative and colourful 'orchestra on the piano'."

"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.

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.