Scarlatti - 60 Sonatas - Ralph Kirkpatrick, Harpsichord

Domenico Scarlatti - 60 Sonatas - Ralph Kirkpatrick, Harpsichord



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Again - as promised - here is a new transfer from recently

acquired material.



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From Ralph Kirkpatrick's notes to his 1954 recording of sixty sonatas of Scarlatti:



"The sixty sonatas of the present recordings were chosen over a long period of time from among those of Scarlatti's 550-odd sonatas that I felt that I most wanted to play. The final choice presents a balanced selection of sonatas from each of the principal periods of Scarlatti's mature harpsichord style....



In these recordings, I have retained the chronological order of sonatas and, of course, the really significant pairwise grouping in which Scarlatti composed most of the later sonatas. This provides the listener with easy and intelligible access to the progression of Scarlatti's style, as well as to individual sonatas....



... All keyboard instruments are (in the phrase of an esteemed friend of mine) but 'illusion machines,' however familiar may have become their language, as has that of the modern pianoforte. I am not interested merely in the harpsichord as such; I feel no obligation, like the conscientious salesman of vacuum cleaners, to demonstrate all of its attachments. For me it is one of several instruments which one employs to make music, not to demonstrate a novelty or to exhibit gadgets. Its effects are interesting to me only when they serve to convey musical meaning....



In embarking on a commentary on these sixty sonatas I find myself assailed by the same doubts concerning writing about music that dogged me through the ten years I was writing my 'Domenico Scarlatti.' For this reason, I have written relatively little about specific pieces in the commentary... In attempting to do so, I found that I was merely writing once more the same sort of stuff I threw into the wastebasket before publishing my book. Moreover, most of what I have to say in words about Scarlatti, or what I think really worth saying, is already in that book. Therefore, most of the commentary is made up of passages reprinted with occasional modifications from my 'Domenico Scarlatti.' To quote its preface: 'I subsequently realized that verbal discussion of specific pieces on a poetical and imaginative level can be extraordinarily dangerous. Repeatedly I have realized that what I have written about a piece distorts or limits what as a performer I feel its content to be. (I have often found myself tacitly engaged at an instrument in combatting the misleading and incomplete indications of my own program notes.)' "



In contrast to the Odyssey reissue of these recordings, the complete notes referred to above are included here (all seven LP-sized illustrated inserts - and they make for very good reading). Also preserved is Kirkpatrick's ordering of the sonatas into groups of "Early," "Middle Period," and "Late."



This is doubtless one of the most unique series of recordings ever made - not only because of the extraordinary playing it contains - but also because it qualifies as a "work in itself" combining a very high degree of artistry founded on a comparable level of scholarship.



Scarlatti wrote over half of his sonatas after reaching the age of 67.



LP transfers of material recorded 1954 (Columbia, c. mid-1960s).



Includes original covers, notes and label.



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NOTE: This mid-1960s edition represents an improvement over the pressing defects characteristic of the later Odyssey reissue (i.e., whatever flaws exist are not quite as numerous or severe). Common to both, though, is a certain amount of low frequency noise sounding similar to an air-conditioning system running in the background. In spite of efforts to reduce this noise, some of it does remain. A compromise - as is often necessary when making transfers - has been made giving priority to preserving the original recorded sound. However, when one follows Kirkpatrick's plea (in the section of his notes titled "How to Play These Records") "not to play these records at too high a volume level" - this noise remains more or less unobtrusive. (Finally, whatever veracity contained in what Kirkpatrick writes above about "illusion machines" might as well be extrapolated to include recordings in general - no matter how technically "perfect" or otherwise.)