Scarlatti: Piano Sonata K 141

Before proceeding to an analysis of the personal compositional style of Scarlatti, I shall expound on the main characteristics of the Baroque Era.

The term ‘Baroque’ was derived from the Portuguese ‘barroco’ (meaning ‘oddly shaped pearl’). It has been used since the XIX century to describe the music produced between 1600 and 1750 in the Western world
.
The comparison to a ‘misshappen pearl’ was drawn by  XIX century critics to define the much ornamented music of composers such as Bach and Haendel.    

The main features of the Baroque Era music were:

1)      Contrast as a dramatic element:
The drama of compositions was largely due to contrast: piano and forte, solos and ensembles (as in concertos) and the use of contrasting instruments and timbres. 

2)      Monody, a less complicated polyphony and the advent of the basso continuo:

Previously, in eras prior to the Baroque period, music tended to consist of a single melody with an improvised accompaniment or a complex polyphony (two or more simultaneous melodic lines). Only in the Baroque Era were the concepts of melody and harmony clearly defined.  Composers started to focus more on either counterpoint (the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent - i.e. polyphony - but independent in rhythm and contour) or on a single voice with a simplified accompaniment (monody).  

In addition, with the Baroque Era came the pratice of  basso continuo (or thorough bass) – which, in musical notation, occurs in the form of a bass line written out along with the melody,together with a harmonic filler indicated in a type of shorthand. Due to the widespread pratice of the thorough bass during the Baroque period, the era is sometimes named the ‘age of thorough bass’.  

3)      Performance technique:

Baroque scores hardly ever contain any information about dynamics, ornamentation (usually left as an improvisation of the performer’s or ensemble’s choice) and articulation. Mechanical differences between the harpsichord (the keyboard instrument of that time, whose strings were plucked instead of struck) and the modern piano demanded an adjusting in technique. This also happened to other instruments and their modern corresponding instruments.  

The Baroque Sonata:
The Baroque Sonata was fundamentally different from the Classical Period Sonata (see post on Mozart’s K 448 in D major for two pianos, of October 17, 2012).  Among other forms (such as the sonatas da chiesa), the term sonata was also used to define the over 500 works for harpsichord, and sometimes other keyboard instruments (such as the virginal or the spinet, all created prior to the Classical Period fortepiano –see Annex 1, posted on October 17) by Domenico Scarlatti. Most of them had one single movement, written in binary form[1] . The parts are written in the same tempo, and have the same main theme. Many of them were composed in pairs, one in a major tone and the other in parallel minor. Modulations were more distant than those used for that time, and audacious dissonances were employed. They were usually virtuosistic works.  

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) was one of the most relevant composers of the Baroque Era.
Son of the great musician and composer Alessandro Scarlatti, his major contribution to music were his innovative single-movement sonatas for solo keyboard (although he has also written works for a variety of other forms). The Russian piano school has been a major supporter and has broadly divulged his sonatas.
Other features of Scarlatti’s compositional style (particularly in the case of his sonatas for keyboard) were:

a)  rhythmic characteristics: the use of syncopation and crossed rhythms were also very common in his music;

b) The use of the Phrygian mode[2] and other tonal inflexions unusual to European music, as well as of extremely dissonant chord groups,as a consequence of the influence of Spanish traditional folk music.

c) A formal feature which Scarlatti specialist Ralph Kirkpatrick called ‘the crux’ – which very frequently is signalled by a pause or fermata in the middle of the piece. Before ‘the crux’, the sonatas present their main thematic variations; after ‘the crux’, there is an increase in repetitive figurations as it modulates away from the home key (in the first half) or goes back to the home key (in the second half).
Notice, in the piece that follows (The Piano Sonata K141), the nice dissonances used by the composer,  the distant modulations and the innovative way the main theme variations are woven. Finally, observe the length of the piece – compared to that of a typical Classical Period sonata.

A fantastic performance by Scarlatti’s renowned specialist Tharaud. Enjoy!   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ca3WWyL6UE  

---

[1] A form comprised of two sections, usually repeated (AABB)

[2] ‘Mode’ comprises the concept  of diatonic scale (i.e. seven-note, octave-repeating musical scale formed of five whole steps and two half steps for each octave) and an element of melody type. ‘Mode’ can either have the meaning of ‘particularized scale’ or ‘generalized tune’. In modern western music (from the 18th century onward), the Phrygian mode corresponds to the modern natural minor musical musical mode, also known as Aolian mode; however, it differs from the Aolian in its second scale degree, which is a half step lower.