Naxos Scarlatti

For his guitar laureate recording, Croatian-born Lovro Peretic has selected a panoramic programme that reaches back to the 18th century and forward to modern times. Of the two Scarlatti sonata arrangements one is by Peretic who has also transcribed a Brahms Intermezzo into a poignant lullaby. His performance of Karel Craeyvanger’s Weber homage, reveals the work’s variety and expressiveness. He also plays a sensually evocative piece by Barrios Mangore, and two barely known works by Debussy. Peretic ends the recital with Henze’s characterful Second Sonata on Shakespearean Characters.

Domenico Scarlatti is best remembered for the hundreds of single-movement keyboard sonatas he composed for his pupil the Infanta Maria Bárbara, who married the heir to the Spanish throne in 1728, taking her music master with her from Lisbon to Madrid. Scarlattis panache and inventiveness is always on show in these compact sonatas, their delicacy and refinement hiding some surprising explorations of unexpected keys, and technical demands such as hand-crossing and chains of sixths and thirds that would have posed some interesting challenges to his clearly talented pupil.