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Surveying Scarlatti · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Hello, friends.
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  This is Jed Disler, and I welcome you to the Piano Maven podcast, your friendly guide to
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  piano recordings.
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  If you follow my weekly radio show, Between the Keys, on www.fm.org, the classical network,
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  you've probably noticed that at least once a year I feature an episode that's entirely
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  given over to the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti.
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  This is music that is full of virtuosity, imagination, a lot of vitality and character
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  it has.
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  I just love Scarlatti sonatas.
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  And there have been many pianists who revel in this repertoire's challenges and delights.
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  Harpsichordists, though, tend to feel that the Scarlatti sonatas are their exclusive
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  property.
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  After all, Scarlatti did write these for the harpsichord.
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  He did not know about the piano.
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  At least I don't think he did.
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  However, I'm sure that Scarlatti would have loved the piano's capacity for tone color,
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  for variety of articulation, and even subtle pedal effects.
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  I'm going to be talking on this episode about pianists who have recorded Scarlatti albums,
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  meaning an entire long playing release devoted to Scarlatti sonatas.
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  I'm not going to get into the individual selections on these releases because for this talk, I'd
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  rather focus on recitals that generally aim for a varied and well-contrasted program.
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  And this is very true of a 1950 release that consists of 12 Scarlatti sonatas played by
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  the Romanian pianist Clara Haskell.
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  For years, this was a highly sought after collector's item.
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  It was not easy to find on LP.
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  And then, thank goodness, it did appear for the first time on compact disc, I think in
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  1998.
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  These interpretations, I adore.
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  They are paradigms of control, of taste and color and ornamentation and timing and you
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  name it, everything you need for great Scarlatti playing.
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  No detail goes unaccounted for.
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  Yet, in Clara Haskell's hands, everything just sounds so natural and inevitable.
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  You can say the same about the French pianist Marcel Meillère and her 1950s mono recordings
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  of 32 Scarlatti sonatas and these are equally special.
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  However, most piano mavens consider the 12 sonatas released by Columbia Masterworks in
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  1964 on an all Scarlatti album by Vladimir Horowitz to be the gold standard of Scarlatti
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  pianism.
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  And I can understand why.
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  Now, as much as I revere the original release and Horowitz's original grouping of 12 very
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  diverse sonatas, I would try to find a 1993 reissue that was part of the Sony Classical
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  Horowitz Columbia Masterworks collection because this reissue presented an additional six sonatas
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  from these sessions that only came out after Horowitz's death.
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  So you actually get 18 sonatas.
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  And of course you can find additional Horowitz Scarlatti performances throughout many of
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  the live and unedited Horowitz concerts that have been released in recent years.
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  And he also did some Scarlatti on his 1962 Columbia album, The Sound of Horowitz.
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  But this 1964 Scarlatti disc by Horowitz is your starting place.
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  Although I would try to get the Horowitz Masterworks edition mastering with the six additional
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  studio performances that didn't make the original final cut.
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  Either way, Horowitz and Scarlatti is a great pair.
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  And I have to remember that quote.
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  I think it was Donald Hennehan in the New York Times who said that Scarlatti was both
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  the delight and despair of most pianists or some words to that effect.
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  We're going to move to the 1970s next for some more wonderful Scarlatti compilations.
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  Anne Kafelek, the pianist, was all of 22 years old when she made a Scarlatti recital in 1970
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  for the Erato label.
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  And this has some of the most spirited and confident Scarlatti playing I've ever heard
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  from any pianist.
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  I would say that if Horowitz is rosé, then Anne Kafelek in Scarlatti is like a dry yet
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  super bubbly Prosecco.
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  In 1972, the Concert Society label issued a two LP set featuring the late Anthony de
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  Bonaventura playing 23 Scarlatti sonatas.
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  I don't think this ever came out on CD, although it did come out in an audiophile cassette
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  edition.
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  Anyway, this is beautiful and colorful and cultivated Scarlatti playing.
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  And I actually find it more inspired and incisive than in the two Scarlatti CDs that this same
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  pianist released many years later.
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  He didn't quite capture the magic of these Concert Society recordings.
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  And if you can find them in some way, shape, or form, they are so worth hearing.
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  And I really wish that the Concert Society label would be revived.
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  I kind of imagine a box set of like every CD, every piano recording this label ever
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  put out.
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  What would that be, like 558 CDs or something?
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  That's wishful thinking.
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  Yevgeny Sudbin released two Scarlatti recitals on the Bis label.
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  It's the first of these that I think is really special.
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  And he takes a very pianistic approach to this repertoire, which means that he makes
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  no bones about transposing phrases up and down an octave or a register or filling out
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  octaves with chords.
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  It's very pianistically oriented.
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  But he takes these liberties in the best of taste and with a great sense of style.
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  So that's Yevgeny Sudbin, his first of the two Scarlatti recitals he made for Bis.
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  And there's comparable finesse and surface elegance and refinement in a collection of
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  Scarlatti sonatas that the pianist Sergey Babayan recorded for the pro piano label in
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  the 1990s.
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  I don't know where you can find the physical CD if it's been reissued anywhere, but you
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  definitely can find these performances as downloads and on streaming platforms.
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  Another really imaginative interpreter who gets to the heart and the mind of Scarlatti
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  is the French pianist Alice Adair.
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  And she did a wonderful Scarlatti recital for the Fuga Libera label.
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  The physical disc, again, is hard to find, but you can download it or you can stream
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  it.
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  And on the same rarified level, there's this wonderful double album of Scarlatti sonatas
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  by the Italian pianist Margarita Torretta.
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  Definitely check that one out.
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  The Noxus label has an ongoing cycle that will encompass Scarlatti's complete sonatas
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  played on the piano.
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  And each of the single disc volumes features a different pianist.
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  A few pianists actually have done more than one disc in this series.
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  One of my favorite in this cycle comes from the pianist Konstantin Sherbakov, and his
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  rhythmic alon and his scintillating passage work is exactly what Scarlatti needs.
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  I also should mention Carlo Grante, who became the first single pianist to record the complete
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  Scarlatti sonatas on the modern concert grand.
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  And this series came out on the music and arts label.
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  His meticulous approach to ornaments and phrasing really comes across in these performances
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  as well as his scholarly annotations.
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  And also in progress is a complete Scarlatti cycle on the piano issued on the tacit label
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  and the pianist is Christoph Urich.
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  And this has been very consistent and really, really excellent and I look forward to its
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  completion.
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  It's still very much in progress.
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  There's a double CD set on the Berlin Classics label where the pianist Claire Wansi arranges
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  groups of Scarlatti sonatas in the form of suites where the movements are very smartly
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  contrasted but they also go very well together as if they were sonatas or suites.
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  And I think it's an unusual yet a very rewarding way to program these sonatas.
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  And especially, that's true when you are so gifted a pianist as Claire Wansi, that's on
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  Berlin Classics.
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  Definitely check that out.
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  However for the ultimate fusion of Scarlatti's sound world and style and the possibilities
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  that modern concert grands can offer, I always come back to this two disc Scarlatti collection
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  that first came out on Virgin Classics.
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  It features the pianist Mikhail Platnev and this is Scarlatti piano playing that is all
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  about piano playing.
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  Mikhail Platnev's lavish peddling and his use of rubato and his variety of voicings
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  are the kind of things that modern critics would like to carp about when they talk about
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  today's pianists but they can't get enough of these qualities when they talk about dead
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  pianists.
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  Isn't that something?
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  Anyway, the music sounds so playful and charismatic in the hands of Mikhail Platnev and you will
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  rarely hear such perfectly even scales and trills or the kind of melody and accompaniment
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  separation that makes it seem as though Mikhail Platnev was playing on two different pianos
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  in two different rooms at the same time.
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  I might call his approach I guess Horowitz on steroids.
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  I don't know.
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  That also applies by the way to an all Scarlatti disc on Deutsche Grammophon with the pianist
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  Ivo Pogorelic.
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  I didn't mention that one earlier because I like certain selections on this disc but
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  not others but Mikhail Platnev's Scarlatti seduces and entertains and sets pianistic
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  standards that are really hard to match.
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  So enjoy exploring Scarlatti on the piano and I wish you happy listening.
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  This is Jed Disler for the Piano Maven and thank you for tuning in.
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  Spread the good word about this podcast and I look forward to being with you next time.