Domenico Scarlatti Complete Sonatas Brilliant Classics 36cd

This group of Domenico Scarlatti keyboard sonatas from an ongoing Naxos series presents what can fairly be called an old-fashioned approach to the composer's music, although that's not to say anything against it. The young Korean American pianist Soyeon Lee harks back to the times when pianists phrased Scarlatti a good deal like Mozart, who himself was viewed through the prism of Romanticism. In place of the percussive harpsichord rhythms and sharp contrasts of recent Scarlatti performances, you get pedal, gracefully shaped phrases, and a smoothing of the edges of Scarlatti's style.

Amid Domenico Scarlatti's extensive output of over 550 keyboard sonatas lie a small number of works that, given such traits such as figured bass, multi-movement structure and even bowing like articulation, were probably originally written for solo instrument (such as violin) and continuo. In their third recording for Brilliant Classics, members of the Cappella Tiberina present a selection of these works, experimenting with different scorings which historical sources show were common throughout the Baroque repertoire – hence K78 is presented on the theorbo, while K132 is played as a harpsichord solo.

The complete oeuvre runs to 38 CDs, which will now be packaged in seven boxes. Some may mistrust any classical project that describes itself with the word "marathon," but the endless variety of Scarlatti's sonatas compels the skeptic to make an exception; a complete set turns up any number of deliciously bizarre pieces like the Sonata in A minor, K. 3, from the Essercizi per gravicembalo (CD 1, track 3), with its cascades of five-note runs meandering out into strange chromatic lines.

Amid Domenico Scarlatti's extensive output of over 550 keyboard sonatas lie a small number of works that, given such traits such as figured bass, multi-movement structure and even bowing like articulation, were probably originally written for solo instrument (such as violin) and continuo. In their third recording for Brilliant Classics, members of the Cappella Tiberina present a selection of these works, experimenting with different scorings which historical sources show were common throughout the Baroque repertoire – hence K78 is presented on the theorbo, while K132 is played as a harpsichord solo.