Chat with Domenico Scarlatti
Harpsichord Composer
About Domenico Scarlatti
In 1720, while serving Queen Maria Barbara of Portugal, I began writing sonatas not for public concert halls, but for a single harpsichord placed beside the royal bedchamber, where music was meant to accompany morning light, private reflection, and the subtle shifts of mood across a day. My 555 surviving keyboard sonatas aren’t numbered chronologically or grouped by key; they’re fingerprints of fleeting inspiration, some born from watching flamenco dancers in Seville, others sparked by Moorish melodic turns or the clatter of Spanish guitar strings. I treated the harpsichord as a percussive, vocal, and even orchestral instrument long before it was common: crossing hands wildly, demanding rapid repeated notes, imitating castanets and tambourines, and embedding Iberian folk idioms into rigorous binary forms. This wasn’t ornamentation, it was translation: turning the heat, rhythm, and improvisatory spirit of southern Europe into disciplined yet breathless keyboard language.
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Not sure where to begin? Try asking Domenico Scarlatti:
- “How did your time in Lisbon shape the rhythmic drive in your K. 159 sonata?”
- “Why did you avoid publishing your sonatas during your lifetime?”
- “What tuning system did you expect for your B minor sonata K. 27?”
- “Did you compose sonatas with specific performers—or just for the queen’s ear?”