Domenico Scarlatti was a famous Baroque harpsichordist (born in 1685: the same year as J.S. Bach and Handel!) who is famous for his five hundred fifty-five keyboard Sonatas. They are knows for their virtuosity and their sparkling energy. One of their particular technical demands is frequent hand crossovers which he employed liberally (…until his increasingly ample girth prevented him in old age.)

Scarlatti is so distinctive. He was an Italian living in Spain and Portugal, working for the nobility there. That’s a lot of energetic musical culture wrapped up into one guy! I have found that his music doesn’t play too well on a lot of upright pianos because of brilliant repeating notes. Grand pianos have gravity to help get that hammer back down in position to spring back fast enough, not like uprights, whose hammers travel horizontally. Scarlatti’s repeated notes are always obvious, as in his Sonata in D minor, K. 141 (see this unbelievable version by Martha Argerich)

Other things that happen often in Scarlatti’s music are sudden key changes to the parallel major or minor (like jumping from D major to D minor without a modulation) and those famous trills that often happen at the end notes of the two halves of the Sonatas. The most incredible performer of Scarlatti is Michelangeli. (I love that movie!)

Listening to the Repertory: What the Piano Can Say in the Hands of Gilels

This famous Prelude (G minor, Op. 23, No. 5) by Sergei Rachmaninov is played by the Russian Pianist Emil Gilels. This performance is remarkable for his human, his personal sound. The texture is incredible in this; the melodies and the inner voices getting special treatment in so many ways, his amazing, unflagging energy and sense of timing.

The most incredible clip of Gilels can be found linked here (along with other war footage) of him playing this Prelude as a young man for Russian Soldiers about to enter combat. Please look this up- you won't regret seeing him (beginning at minute 1 hour 10 minutes.) Shortly after that you will see Sviatoslav Richter, (Hey, anybody heard of the Revolutionary Etude in C sharp minor? That record player is a bit fast!) and then followed by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli! Emil Gilels was allowed by Soviet Russia to make tours accompanied by government officials. Once when Franz Mohr, (one of the greatest piano technicians ever) had a rare moment with him alone, he said, not knowing what the response would be; "I'd like to give you this," and gave him a Bible. Gilels snatched it out of his surprised hands and in a second it had disappeared into his coat. "Thank you!" he exclaimed, "You don't know what this means to me!" He did not know what happened afterwards. It was perhaps the only time they were together like that. Franz Mohr tells this story in his book My Life With the Great Pianists.