Domenico Scarlatti   

Domenico Scarlatti, born in Naples of Italy on October 26^th 1685, was one of the greatest keyboard players of all time although he was shy and didn’t really like to perform publicly.  He was born in the same year as JS Bach and GF Handel.  His father was a very famous opera singer and composer, and Scarlatti began to learn the harpsichord at a very young age. 

    Scarlatti worked at the Royal Chapel in Naples in 1701, and later records have him in Rome in 1709.  He lived in Italy and Spain until 1733, when he settled in Spain in the service of the Princess Maria Barbara.  Scarlatti married and had five children while in Spain. 

    Scarlatti wrote many of his short pieces as gifts that he gave to friends and visitors.  Finally, from 1752, he began to compose more seriously and to seek publication.  He was full of musical ideas and wrote an average of one Sonata a week over the last six years of his life.  Most of his fame came after his death in 1757, but he succeeded in publishing a collection entitled 30 Exercises, which was very popular across Europe at the time.  

    Scarlatti learnt music while in Italy, but most of his music has a Spanish sound.  His work is tonal, with unusual blocks of sound at one time.  Most of the other composers of his time wrote with voice lines, weaving through different ranges like a choir. 

Also, since Scarlatti had very fast fingers, his works tend to have many quickly moving lines and more hand cross-overs than any other composer.  In order to write these dramatic changes from one end of the keyboard to the other, Scarlatti invented the two-clef connected system we now use.  Passages crossed freely across the two connected staves. 

    Scarlatti’s work was very much admired by some important composers, including Chopin, Brahms and Bartok – thus his work has become highly respected and influential.  Among other techniques, Scarlatti pioneered syncopation and cross rhythms, affects very popular a hundred years later.  Scarlatti wrote more than five hundred Sonatas, mostly in the last few years of his life.  His Sonatas are often used for developing modern piano technique, but he wrote many that are impossible to play on the piano because of the different mechanisms from the harpsichord. 

    Scarlatti wrote brilliant, cheerful pieces that were well ahead of his time, bridging the Baroque and Classical Periods.

Last modified: April 13, 2009