Luigi Attademo - D. Scarlatti: Sonatas for Guitar '2009

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Sonata in B Minor, Kk. 377 (Allegrissimo)
02. Sonata in A Major, Kk. 208 (Adagio e cantabile)
03. Sonata in A Major, Kk. 209 (Allegro)
04. Sonata in D Minor, Kk. 32 (Aria)
05. Sonata in D Minor, Kk. 77 (Moderato e cantabile)
06. Sonata in D Minor, Kk. 77 (Minuet)
07. Sonata in D Minor, Kk. 34 (Larghetto)
08. Sonata in E Minor, Kk. 291 (Andante)
09. Sonata in E Minor, Kk. 292 (Allegro)
10. Sonata in B Minor, Kk. 87 (Andante)
11. Sonata in F Minor, Kk. 481 (Andante e cantabile)
12. Sonata in E-Flat Major, Kk. 476 (Allegro)
13. Sonata in D Minor, Kk. 213 (Andante)

The 600 or so sonatas for harpsichord by Domenico Scarlatti contain some of the
most remarkable music for keyboard from the Barock era. The influence of these
works can be detected in the sonatas of Haydn, Clementi, and Beethoven. The fact
that these composers, who developed the piano sonata form to new levels
virtuosity, and at a time when the piano was a ‘new’ instrument,
developing constantly, were influenced by his examples, has lead to many
performers re-appraising Scarlatti’s sonatas.

How would they sound on other instruments? The modern concert grand is, today,
no stranger to Scarlatti’s sonatas, but the guitar? The great Andres
Segovia was one of the first to recognise that many of these sonatas would work
for the guitar. His idea was not to imitate the harpsichord (‘a guitar
with a cold’ as he famously said, much to the annoyance of the great
harpsichordist Wanda Landowska), but to bring out hitherto unexplored textures
and colours contained in the music that only the guitar could realise. There
wasn’t much in the way of period interpretation or slavish imitation of
keyboard practice in Segovia’s approach. It was a marvellously ‘gut
feel’ instinctive interpretation that divided opinion.

In 1994 Claudio Giuliani attempted (successfully) to navigate a path for
guitarists through the purists and Segovia’s opposing positions and
published a collection of Scarlatti’s sonatas that lie within the compass
of the guitar.

On this CD Attademo skilfully demonstrates that the two schools of thought can
be brought together – Scarlatti’s genius as keyboard virtuoso, and
the genius and instinctiveness of Segovia.

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