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DOMENICO SCARLATTI AND THE MODERN AGE OF THE HARPSICHORD Domenico Scarlatti can certainly be regarded as a singular case in music history in one respect: in the structuring of his entire oeuvre into a first period of vocal compositions, operas and oratorios (all composed in Italy) and a second period of works for harpsichord, composed from ca. 1738, the year of publication of the 30 Esercizi on the Iberian Peninsula. It is known that Scarlatti was in the service of Maria Bárbara of Portugal. It can be said with certainty that he must have been a real harpsichord virtuoso before that, because the movement of his harpsichord compositions (all of them referred to as sonatas) testifies to the unerring instinct for the special features of the instrument. Someone who wrote so idiomatically for the harpsichord must have mastered it himself as a player, certainly from an early age. Corresponding statements by his contemporaries about his harpsichord playing have also been preserved. However, the fact that he only began to compose for this instrument in the second phase of his life leaves us somewhat at a loss. True, Maria Bárbara might have been asking for more and more pieces - and Scarlatti delivered. This may have spurred his imagination on to ever new ideas, but the fact that he didn't want to turn to "his" instrument in Italy remains strange. According to the Kirkpatrick catalogue, 555 sonatas are Scarlatti's compositional legacy for the harpsichord. Anyone who has ever had to choose one, two or three pieces from this huge compendium knows the difficulty of having to choose one or the other. Because the wealth of ideas, the joy of playing, virtuosity, the harsh Spanish idiom or the singing ability do not make it easy for the player to make a decision for certain pieces. Scarlatti always leaves you wanting more! The four composers from the 20th and 21st centuries who join Domenico Scarlatti in this program could not be more different from one another: Richard Strauss as a post-romantic, Isang Yun with his fascinating tonal harshness, Jukka Tiensuu as a modern Scarlatti antipode in his two qualities as a harpsichordist and composer at the same time, and finally Minas Borboudakis, whose energetic rhythm seems to have been made for the harpsichord. These four composers use Scarlatti sonatas as bridges to one another, similar to the Promenade movements in Mussorgsky's pictures of an exhibition. The two sonatas in F major K 205 and 296 in this combination form two contrasting elements, as they are in Isang Yun's piece composed in 1966 Shao Yang Yin provides: »Shao Yang Yin, the composition's Chinese title, suggests thinking of the great, complementary opposites ('Yang Yin') of Taoist teaching. However, the addition ›Shao‹ (= small, light) makes it clear that here the contrasts of everyday life (moods, conditions, time sequences) are transferred to the musical,” says the composer in the foreword of the first edition. Like so many other works of the 20th century, this one was commissioned by the Swiss patron and harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer. In the run-up to his work, Yun wrote to Vischer: »I know […] the instrument too little« (see foreword by Edith Picht-Axenfeld / Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer to the new edition). That also seems to be a good thing, because Yun completely dispenses with the treatment of the instrument as a rhythmically distinctive but uniformly smooth instrument, which was common in the 20th century. What appears to be "against" the nature of the instrument, namely the lack of rhythmic stringency, turns out to be a fascinating stroke of luck: the music breaks away from its compositional predecessors, especially those of the 20th century, dispenses with everything "neo-baroque" and wins thereby in independence. The gallant side of Richard Strauss can often be found in his work: in Rosenkavalier, in the Don Quixote, in burlesque and in the Don Juan, to name just a few examples. It is therefore hardly surprising that in 1923 he received a Dance suite based on piano pieces by Couperin for orchestra, music that certainly corresponded to the galant traits of his own. François Couperin himself was perhaps the most respected master of the harpsichord in France at a time when Scarlatti enjoyed a similar reputation in southern Europe. The Sonata K 114 is characterized by special extravagance and innovative spirit and is certainly one of Scarlatti's boldest works. Strauss' suite was not originally intended as a solo piece for the harpsichord: the three dances, Passepied, Gigue and Tempo di Gavotta, are scored for violin, cello and harpsichord as incidental music for the opera Capriccio intended. The harpsichordist at the Vienna premiere of the opera, Isolde Ahlgrimm, recommended that Strauss perform these three dances in her series »Concerts for Connoisseurs and Lovers«. Ahlgrimm told the composer that she did not play chamber music, to which he replied that she could play the suite on her own. When she remarked that this did not have a proper ending, Strauss assured her that he would write one for it (see Dr. Rudolf Scholz, preface to the edition, Schott Verlag). We owe the transcription of the dances for solo harpsichord to Isolde Ahlgrimm, while the final cadenza was originally composed for this version by Richard Strauss. In his etudes, Jukka Tiensuu combines wit and profound knowledge of the harpsichord from the instrument. The latter is hardly surprising, given that Tiensuu is a fabulous harpsichord player himself, mastering the most difficult works in literature (Xenakis, Sciarrino) like no other. In the Etudes he dispenses with the different moods of the registers, as he does in his fantango prescribes. Similar to the Chopin Etudes, each of the pieces deals with a specific technical problem. The similarity of the titles and the order fast-slow-fast create the dramaturgical framework. The locomotive in train rushes unchecked and yet somewhat pathetically because of his own "destiny" in the direction of the goal. A sharp brake brings her to a stop just before she can overshoot the target. grain (Körner) is, one might hardly hear, the most complex of the three pieces. It is a structure composed of several rhythmically very different segments. Individual tone repetitions or tone combinations always sound in the same rhythmic motif. The demands placed on the player for independent part-writing are unparalleled. drain after all, is a tour de force etude that Scarlatti would certainly have enjoyed. Cascades of notes to be played extremely quickly, interrupted by short repetitive and chordal passages, build up to clusters of sound or scurry across the entire keyboard. What a relief for the player when, after almost two minutes, the three deep H' be reached! Those preceding the etudes of Tiensuu Sonatas K 516 and 517 are a typical example of Scarlatti's coupling of two pieces in the same key in the slow–fast order. Like all pieces of the late work, they are characterized by extreme reduction and concentration of means. It's kept completely different Sonata in C minor K 115. Not only the lush dissonant chords are characteristic of this creative period, the Spanish idiom is particularly evident. So it was only logical to have such a piece of the Tribute to Picasso, which Minas Borboudakis wrote for me in 2003. Borboudakis was inspired for his piece by the painting »Guernica«. The Basque city of Guernica was completely destroyed by the German and Italian air forces in 1937. Picasso then created a complex and huge picture. The fact that the bull or Minotaur, which is important for the painter, appears in it should not be irrelevant for Borboudakis: The composer, who comes from the island of Crete, often incorporates Greek ancient ideas and the legacy of Minoan culture into his work. A half-bull, half-man creature, the Minotaur represents cruelty, yet it is not itself to blame for being created. It is brutality created by humans and, according to legend, could only be undone by human hands. Borboudakis' music is also brutal and unyielding in this case. The stringency of the rhythm is written specifically for the instrument. The music wanders restlessly, caught in its hopelessness. The short, lyrical moments in the middle section don't want to create beauty, they are shaped by fear. At the end of the piece, the harpsichord, electronically amplified, is supposed to increase in volume ad absurdum. Andrew Skouras program:
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