Domenico SCARLATTI (1685 - 1757)
Sonate per cembalo, libro I
Sonata in Do minore K174 [8:18]
Sonata in Sol maggiore K171 [3:04]
Sonata in Re minore K176 [8:16]
Sonata in Do maggiore K170 [7:50]
Sonata in Mi maggiore K162 [6:51]
Sonata in Re maggiore K164 [7:47]
Sonata in La minore K149 [2:52]
Sonata in Si bemolle maggiore K154 [3:51]
Sonata in La minore K148 [2:15]
Sonata in Si bemolle maggiore K172 [6:02]
Antonio SOLER (1729-1783)
Sonata in Do maggiore [2:43]
Sonata in Si maggiore [5:24]
Sonata in Re bemolle maggiore [6:32]
Sonata in Mi maggiore [2:50]
Andrea Bacchetti (piano)
rec. Fazioli Concert Hall, Sacile Italy, 18 September 2012
RCA RED SEAL 88765417252 [74:40]
Andrea Bacchetti's pioneering voyage of discovery amongst the undiscovered gems of Italian keyboard
moves to a new level with this release. If you liked his recording of unusual sonatas by Benedetto
Marcello (see review), then this disc goes further down the same page with Domenico Scarlatti.
These performances have been prepared in a new edition by Andrea Bacchetti and Mario Marcarini based
on original sources. The booklet goes into some detail on this subject, but to cut a long story short
the National Library of St Mark's in Venice holds a collection of codices; scores by various composers,
handed down by complex and sometimes mysterious historical chains of events. There are no autograph
manuscripts of Scarlatti's sonatas, so such copies are like Shakespeare First Folios to musicians.
The booklet doesn't go further into what this new edition might have to offer over any of the others,
but any scholarly and practical work which takes us closer to the closest of sources has to be of interest.
Andrea Bacchetti can once again be found in the Fazioli Concert Hall, bringing a Fazioli Grand Piano
model F728 to life with these musical jewels. Recordings from this source haven't always been equally
brilliant, but this is a very fine piano recording with plenty of detail, without being too close to
the instrument for comfort. Bacchetti's performances sometimes have a wistful poetry to them which
takes us into entirely different worlds to those to which we might have become used. Take the first
track, the Sonata K174, whose timing of 8:18 you might think was a typo.
No indeed, Bacchetti slows
the music into something lyrical and picturesque, and entirely in contrast to the double-tempo version
by Carlo Grante on a 6 CD set from the Music and Arts Programs of America label, CD-1236, which comes
in at 4:44 (see review). I only pick on this as one of the extreme cases, and in order to compare like
with like when it comes to piano rather than harpsichord or anything else. Bacchetti is usually more
spacious in his approach but he is not always slow. With the next Sonata K 171 his timing is 3:04
against Grante's 2:56, so it's not wide variances all of the time.
Trying to find overlaps with collections of Scarlatti programmes for comparison can be frustrating,
there are just so many of them. A pretty reliable piano series of the sonatas has been released by
the Naxos label, and if you look for the Sonata K 164 you will find it played by Chu-Fang Huang on
8.572107. Huang goes for the more familiar dance-like approach, a light touch and lilting rhythms which
move the music along while allowing for the dark and light of Scarlatti's little dramas and cadences.
The timing here is 4:24 to Bacchetti's 7:47, so you know we're looking at another transformation.
You wonder how it can work at all at such a pace, but Bacchetti does it somehow, taking the Scarlatti's
simplest of means and making them even simpler by reducing the rhythmic element to a two-part invention
which describes ripples on calm evening waters rather than the white peaks of a racing tide. There's
no saying which version is better, they are so different as to create two almost entirely different
pieces of music.
Bacchetti shines a light on Scarlatti's music which seems to me at times entirely new, and with no
enlightenment to be had from the booklet about his approach to these performances I decided to go the
extra mile and ask him why he went for these tempi. This is Bacchetti's fourth in-depth single composer
exploration after his work on Cherubini, Galuppi and Marcello, and his long reflection on these works
has included comparisons with other theorists and interpreters as well as immersing himself in the original
extant material. Bacchetti sums up his performances as a synthesis of this wide background and detailed
examination of the sources of the music and its times - something which has brought him "inside" these
pieces as much as anyone. Interpretation of these works is of course something which remains intuitive
and intangible, and as we don't really know how fast or exactly in which manner these pieces were played
there is no-one who can say Bacchetti is wrong in his performance decisions. I for one salute his occasional
abandonment of accepted trends. With the utter conviction of these performances there are none which
seem "wrong", and certainly not after the initial adjustment has been made to your expectations.
The sustaining qualities of the modern concert grand piano may have something to do with the "feel"
of such performances, and it is harder to imagine them being particularly acceptable on a harpsichord
or other contemporaneous keyboard instrument, but this again is all subjective. We've long come to accept
Bach on piano, with some tempi far removed from anything likely to have been considered realistic in 1710.
The results here are often surprising, certainly refreshing, and invariably crystalline in their sheer
clarity of communication, elegance of structure and content, and that's enough for me.
Described on the CD as "bonus tracks", the last four pieces are sonatas by Antonio Soler.
His style can bear comparison with Scarlatti, though connoisseurs will always be able to tell the difference.
Soler's harmonies and musical material develop different colours to Scarlatti's, and putting the two together
is a fascinating juxtaposition in this context. You can sense Bacchetti's difference in response to Soler's
little eccentricities, which have a naïve aspect while at the same time being exploratory and progressive.
The lively sonatas of tracks 11 and 14 have an attractively crisp touch, and the two in between are
approached with restraint but a good deal of dynamic shading and exquisite lines.
Once again, Andrea Bacchetti confounds our image of two masters of the southern European keyboard, but
in such a way as to open our ears to new possibilities within their art.
Dominy Clements
