(#2 in the Laney’s List series — a music professor chooses 36 pieces to introduce his 16-year-old daughter to classical music. Back to #1)
If you made it to the second year of piano lessons, you probably know Domenico Scarlatti. After months of patiently listening to you lightly rowing and informing relatives about the demise of waterfowl, Mrs. Mawdsley told you in hushed tones that your hard work had paid off. You were ready at last for real music. You were ready for Scarlatti.
He wrote 555 keyboard sonatas, and some of them were simple and sedate enough for small, sticky fingers:
(16 sec)
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But about 499 of his sonatas are entirely else.
Scarlatti spent most of his career writing brilliant, inventive, dynamic bursts of keyboard fireworks for the Spanish and Portuguese courts, and these Scarlatti sonatas probably never made it to your music stand. But after she bye-byed you out the door, poured herself a Bloody Mary and let down her messy piano teacher bun, it was this Scarlatti that Mrs. Mawdsley invited into her living room. This Scarlatti will blow your hair back. This Scarlatti is so much fun it hurts.
Watch the amazing Martha Argerich shred this one.
SCARLATTI Sonata in D Minor K 141
[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjghYFgt8Zk” parameters=”start=3″ /]
1 Chopin | 2 Scarlatti | 3 Hildegard | 4 Bach | 5 Chopin | 6 Reich | 7 Delibes | 8 Ravel | 9 Ravel | 10 Boulanger | 11 Debussy | 12 Ginastera | Full list | YouTube playlist