Scarlatti 141

For his third Erato album of harpsichord music, Jean Rondeau turns to Domenico Scarlatti and some 20 of the often-dazzling sonatas that the Neapolitan composer wrote during his years at the royal court in Madrid. Imbued with the spirit of the dance, they are works that Rondeau uses “to tell a story for the people who will listen to an album from beginning to end …

Scarlatti's Sonatas are baroque gems, full of sparkling melodies and Spanish swing. Accordionist Philippe Thuriot improvises these enchanting sonatas, breathing new life into them. After explorations of the oeuvre of Bach and Couperin, Thuriot now devotes an entire programme to the keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti. Although the latter called his sonatas Essercizi per gravicembalo (l'studies for harpsichord'), they are so much more than finger exercises.

Scarlatti's Sonatas are baroque gems, full of sparkling melodies and Spanish swing. Accordionist Philippe Thuriot improvises these enchanting sonatas, breathing new life into them. After explorations of the oeuvre of Bach and Couperin, Thuriot now devotes an entire programme to the keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti. Although the latter called his sonatas Essercizi per gravicembalo (l'studies for harpsichord'), they are so much more than finger exercises.

The second of three pastoral operas by Scarlatti, this dates from 1701 and has the usual cast of misloving shepherds and shepherdesses, noble and plebeian points of view, with a hunting chorus or two to make use of the two oboes, oboe da caccia and bassoon in the orchestra. A filmed concert performance in an old stone church.