Naxos Scarlatti

After a first album dedicated to Weill, Zemlinsky and Korngold (Alpha272), Kate Lindsey explores here her other repertoire of choice, the music of the eighteenth century. In partnership with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, she has recorded three cantatas focusing on the myth of Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos after helping Theseus kill the Cretan Minotaur by giving him a ball of thread so that he could find his way back through the labyrinth. Alessandro Scarlatti's Ebra d amor fuggia (1707) relates Ariadne's flight, drunk with love , alongside Theseus, for whom she expresses her tenderness in the magnificent aria Pur ti stringo .

Marcello Di Lisa presents three cantate con stromenti that explore the anguish of abandoned lovers; his erudite booklet-note discusses the literary tradition behind the stories of the shepherd Aminta (a stock Arcadian character with roots in Hellenistic poetry), Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, and the forsaken Olimpia (heroine of cantos 9-11 of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), and also provides a penetrating commentary on the musical content of Scarlatti’s cantatas.

Domenico Scarlatti's distinguished career included a royal post in Rome where he competed against Handel, the latter being declared the better organist and Scarlatti the better harpsichordist. Written for his pupil the Infanta Maria Bárbara, Scarlattis legacy of hundreds of single-movement keyboard sonatas forms a valuable resource for performers today. This collection includes a wealth of Spanish dances with virtuoso leaps, unusual modulations, flourishes and ornamentation, as well as Scarlattis irrepressible verve and energy.

Catalonian composer Padre Antonio Soler took holy orders to become a monk at the Escorial monastery, near Madrid and became a pupil of master keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti. Soler may not be as highly regarded as his teacher in many circles, however much of the skill and creativity has undoubtedly rubbed-off. Like his teacher Scarlatti many of these sonatas are characterised for their Spanish flavour of Flamenco song, energetic dance and guitar-like strumming.

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

This album belongs to a series of six albums in Naxos’s new joint initiative with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, presenting debut albums for outstanding students. Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Pascaleff was the inaugural Denis Matthews Scholar between 2016 and 2018 at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he studied with Anthony Hewitt and Pascal Nemirovski. Scarlatti’s single-movement sonatas or exercises are his greatest musical legacy. Largely designed for the Infanta, who became Queen of Spain in 1746, the music exists in a number of 18th-century manuscripts, some possibly bequeathed to the great Italian castrato Farinelli. Each of the sonatas in this volume exemplifies the limitless variety of Scarlatti’s imagination, from ‘crush’ notes and surprising pauses, through virtuosic moto perpetuos, bell evocations and busy counterpoint, to delicately restrained phrases and delightful syncopation.