Complete Keyboard Works Vol. IV

This is our fourth CD containing compositions by Alessandro (Pietro Gaspare) Scarlatti (Palermo, 2 May 1660 – Naples, 22 October1725) that were chiefly meant for the harpsichord and performed on it; it is a follow-up to our project that envisages the recordingof the complete works of this great composer for keyboard instruments.
The project stemmed, in a natural, almost parallel fashion, from the programme for the study and publication of the vast corpus of manuscript sources (no less than 25) of Alessandro Scarlatti’s pieces for keyboard instruments that was started by us more than ten years ago: the publication of his “Opera Omnia per strumento a tastiera” by the publisher Ut Orpheus Edizioni of Bologna (edited by Andrea Macinanti and Francesco Tasini) began in 2000 and was completed in 2012 with the printing of the sixth and last volume.
A further volume is forthcoming: it will contain critical texts, including a description of the sources, an index of themes and some remarks on the interpretation.
Alessandro Scarlatti emerges asthe “coryphaeus” and real founder of the celebrated Scuola Tastieristica Napoletana: his great lesson and teaching, formerly rather obscured by a one-sided regard for the impressive corpus of the sonatas of his son Domenico (1685-1757), directly or indirectly tower above the production of works for educational purposes and for keyboard instruments of his contemporaries Gaetano Greco (“Grieco”; approximately 1657-1728) and Francesco Mancini (1672-1737); and his activities revive and acquire a full meaning when they are compared with the subsequent virtuoso harpsichord style of Francesco Durante (1684-1755) and Leonardo Leo (1694-1744).