What I love about the Scarlatti sonatas is there is so much to discover, and so many options for you to create your own "grand sonata". For example, I use K.1 as an opener, K.19 as the slow movement, K.259 as the minuet (if you will), and K.125 as the final, speedy movement. It works!
There is a lot of evidence that suggests that Scarlatti conceived many of his sonatas as pairs (hence you will find many adjacent sonatas in the same key). K. 208, in particular, belongs to one of these, with its sibling sonata being the succeeding k. 209, also in A major. This sonata is a special Spanish folk dance called a ‘Jota’, and the liveliness and ebullience is an excellent contrast to the tranquil and lyrical k. 208. If you are still taking requests, I would definitely suggest k. 209. I love it almost as much as k. 208, but for different reasons. It is so much fun to listen to!
There is a Japanese series on netflix called midnight diner. On the last episode of the second series this piece is used and adds very much to the mood.
Thrilled to have discovered you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the thought and care and spirit you put into this episode (and I will now savor each one - no more than one on any given day!). I discovered Scarlatti for myself in my late teens- that was in Australia. In those days (the 1950s) hardly anyone played or cared for Scarlatti. My mother persuaded my father to buy me the full Longo edition, and over the next few years I worked my way through almost all of them. I still have that edition even though I've moved dozens of times in my long life. (I'm now 80). I was born in Mexico, and Mexican folk music is very important to me - and when I was young in Sydney I kept hearing folk music in Scarlatti, and I now realized that my preferred tempo is always one that you can enjoy dancing to - which is to say NOT at breakneck virtuoso speed. A fandango is not a rollercoaster! I need not go on and on now - suffice it to say that every single thing you say in this episode warms the cockles of my hear and validates my own experience of playing Scarlatti when I was young. And now you inspire me to get back on the piano and play Scarlatti again. My way!
This is such a beautiful sonata. And it’s simplicity certainly adds to that. It’s such a joy to play something like this where the technical demands are low but the musical pleasure is undiminished by that fact.
The Scarlatti sonatas so wonderful and full of harmonic twists and surprises. As you so well explained about the physical sensation it can provoke I suggest one of my favorites - for just that reason: Sonata in g-minor K 426 Please make us appreciate that gem. Thank you David Hurwitz for an entertaining channel and a sane approach to music!
I play my acoustic string bass with a mandolin and guitar group. We have a halfway decent arrangement (which I like to jokingly call a "derangement") for a mandolin band of this Sonata by Scarlatti.
This piece has the feeling of a beautiful Italian opera aria. I believe Scarlatti actually wrote several operas while he was still living in Italy. Have any of them ever been revived? I know he wasn’t as successful an operatic composer as his father, Alessandro Scarlatti. But this piece proves that Domenico had an extraordinary gift for melody. P.S. Kenneth Cooper recorded this piece on the harpsichord, and it was a beautiful performance. The tempo was a little slower than Belder’s, but not as slow as Ullrich’s. I think Cooper nailed the tempo.P.S. I hope there will be many more Scarlatti Escapades, because my Scarlatti fever has reached the terminal stage.
Based on the musical context in which Scarlatti's "tremulo" markings appear in the sonatas, they appear to indicate a long trill. In some sonatas, the placement of the "tremulo" marking suggests a sustained trill over a series of notes, as in K. 132 (near the end of each half).
@@DavesClassicalGuide Haha, yeah it's hard to say for certain, but there is no mistaking the sheer number of times in Scarlatti "tremulo" appears over a long note value. Of the common interpretations (trill with the note above, trill with the note below, repeated notes), a trill--usually for the full duration of the indicated note or passage--is the only interpretation that works well in all cases (either with the note above or below, though I find above often works better). There are too many passages where repeated notes fail as an interpretation for "tremulo", so that interpretation has to be ruled out IMO. I have arrived at my interpretation through playing the passages myself and experimenting with the possible ornaments, also informed by an article in Early Music from Feb. 2002 titled "Domenico Scarlatti's 'tremulo'", which you can read via Google search (it won't let me post the link).
When I took harpsichord lessons as a music major in college, the instructor told me to trill with the note above whenever I was playing Scarlatti's music. She insisted on this whether or not I was playing the harpsichord or the piano.
A very beautiful piece of music indeed! Bebung on a clavichord is not really the equivalent of vibrato on a string instrument. In the former the string tension is increased and then released again which creates a very different effect, whereas on a string instrument the vibrating length of the string is shortened and then lengthened. Bow vibrato is more comparable to the clavichord’s Tremulo in my opinion and I would use that here, should I perform the top line on a string instrument. Why did that beautiful effect fall out of use? Both forms of tone oscillation are, according to most sources of the period (of course with a few exceptions) however regarded as ornaments to be used in good taste. Like trills, mordents etc. Trilling on every note in a piece would be an exemple of not so good taste. The same goes for vibrato and Bebung.
That is just plain wrong, I'm sorry to say. There is a type of vibrato that is indeed used as an ornament--the kind that is readily audible as such--but then there is (for string instruments at least) the variety that simply serves as an adjunct to good tone quality. This is not audible as an embellishment of the melodic line, and it is the failure to today's HIP movement to recognize the difference that is the cause of so much confusion and misdirection as regards the performance practice of string instruments. By the way, I know that Bebung on the clavichord is not the same as string vibrato, but there was no need to go into the distinctions in the course of this chat. It was simply a minor point, but for the record one is a variation in pitch, while the other is a variation in intensity--a technical distinction perhaps, but they may be perceived similarly when used, as you say, as an expressive ornament. I continue to be amazed at the routine insistence on the "vibrato is an ornament" fallacy, when the evidence to the contrary is so overwhelming, and more pertinently, so plainly a matter of common sense and basic musicality.
@@DavesClassicalGuide There are sources that favours both. As a violinist with an interest I have studied many treatises of the 18th and 19th centuries. Well, all I could get my hands on, frankly. And they do, in most cases say to use it consciously and sparingly, in good taste. It is usually placed near the end of treatises and mentioned together with the portamento. Even as late as Joachim/Moser (1905) ”… the pupil can not be sufficiently warned against the habital use of the tremolo, especially in the wrong place. A violinist whose taste is refined and healthy will always regonize the steady tone as the ruling one, and will use the vibrato only where the expression seems to demand it.” Now, from those lines you can indeed conclude that it would be very much in period style to play with an extreme vibrato on all notes, because if no performers did so back then, Joachim, Moser and other masters would not have bothered to warn against it throughout the centuries. There are always two sides of the HIP-coin, as they say…
@@harmoniaartificiosa Well yes but again it's a question of KIND. Not "vibrato" = always one thing. It's never that, not then and not now, so why do so many HIP people pretend that it was and read the treatises accordingly (assuming, which we cannot, that they carried any authority in their day and as you mention, bear some measurable relationship to what anyone actually did).
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What I love about the Scarlatti sonatas is there is so much to discover, and so many options for you to create your own "grand sonata". For example, I use K.1 as an opener, K.19 as the slow movement, K.259 as the minuet (if you will), and K.125 as the final, speedy movement. It works!
There is a lot of evidence that suggests that Scarlatti conceived many of his sonatas as pairs (hence you will find many adjacent sonatas in the same key). K. 208, in particular, belongs to one of these, with its sibling sonata being the succeeding k. 209, also in A major. This sonata is a special Spanish folk dance called a ‘Jota’, and the liveliness and ebullience is an excellent contrast to the tranquil and lyrical k. 208. If you are still taking requests, I would definitely suggest k. 209. I love it almost as much as k. 208, but for different reasons. It is so much fun to listen to!
Sure. I was thinking of keeping the pairing, but the video was already getting long so I wanted to save K. 209 for another talk.
There is a Japanese series on netflix called midnight diner. On the last episode of the second series this piece is used and adds very much to the mood.
Thank you for contributing to my Scarlatti education, even at age 85!
It’s good to see this series come back - I was concerned it would suffer the same fate as the Bach Cantata Schlep.
The schlep is schlepping. That's why I called it a schlep. It will be back too.
I had the same concern. I would also like a CPE Bach Escapade. I'm still amazed by David's mastry of all these subjects!
Thrilled to have discovered you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the thought and care and spirit you put into this episode (and I will now savor each one - no more than one on any given day!). I discovered Scarlatti for myself in my late teens- that was in Australia. In those days (the 1950s) hardly anyone played or cared for Scarlatti. My mother persuaded my father to buy me the full Longo edition, and over the next few years I worked my way through almost all of them. I still have that edition even though I've moved dozens of times in my long life. (I'm now 80). I was born in Mexico, and Mexican folk music is very important to me - and when I was young in Sydney I kept hearing folk music in Scarlatti, and I now realized that my preferred tempo is always one that you can enjoy dancing to - which is to say NOT at breakneck virtuoso speed. A fandango is not a rollercoaster! I need not go on and on now - suffice it to say that every single thing you say in this episode warms the cockles of my hear and validates my own experience of playing Scarlatti when I was young. And now you inspire me to get back on the piano and play Scarlatti again. My way!
That's wonderful! Thank you for sharing this.
This is such a beautiful sonata. And it’s simplicity certainly adds to that. It’s such a joy to play something like this where the technical demands are low but the musical pleasure is undiminished by that fact.
The Scarlatti sonatas so wonderful and full of harmonic twists and surprises.
As you so well explained about the physical sensation it can provoke I suggest one
of my favorites - for just that reason:
Sonata in g-minor K 426
Please make us appreciate that gem.
Thank you David Hurwitz for an entertaining channel and a sane approach to music!
So happy to see and hear Pieter Jan Belder :)
I play my acoustic string bass with a mandolin and guitar group. We have a halfway decent arrangement (which I like to jokingly call a "derangement") for a mandolin band of this Sonata by Scarlatti.
This piece has the feeling of a beautiful Italian opera aria. I believe Scarlatti actually wrote several operas while he was still living in Italy. Have any of them ever been revived? I know he wasn’t as successful an operatic composer as his father, Alessandro Scarlatti. But this piece proves that Domenico had an extraordinary gift for melody. P.S. Kenneth Cooper recorded this piece on the harpsichord, and it was a beautiful performance. The tempo was a little slower than Belder’s, but not as slow as Ullrich’s. I think Cooper nailed the tempo.P.S. I hope there will be many more Scarlatti Escapades, because my Scarlatti fever has reached the terminal stage.
Based on the musical context in which Scarlatti's "tremulo" markings appear in the sonatas, they appear to indicate a long trill. In some sonatas, the placement of the "tremulo" marking suggests a sustained trill over a series of notes, as in K. 132 (near the end of each half).
Or not.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Haha, yeah it's hard to say for certain, but there is no mistaking the sheer number of times in Scarlatti "tremulo" appears over a long note value. Of the common interpretations (trill with the note above, trill with the note below, repeated notes), a trill--usually for the full duration of the indicated note or passage--is the only interpretation that works well in all cases (either with the note above or below, though I find above often works better). There are too many passages where repeated notes fail as an interpretation for "tremulo", so that interpretation has to be ruled out IMO.
I have arrived at my interpretation through playing the passages myself and experimenting with the possible ornaments, also informed by an article in Early Music from Feb. 2002 titled "Domenico Scarlatti's 'tremulo'", which you can read via Google search (it won't let me post the link).
@@SChristianCollins I know--you have to do what works for you, and it's fine. What it actually means, though...
@@DavesClassicalGuide True, true.
When I took harpsichord lessons as a music major in college, the instructor told me to trill with the note above whenever I was playing Scarlatti's music. She insisted on this whether or not I was playing the harpsichord or the piano.
👌Good
A very beautiful piece of music indeed!
Bebung on a clavichord is not really the equivalent of vibrato on a string instrument. In the former the string tension is increased and then released again which creates a very different effect, whereas on a string instrument the vibrating length of the string is shortened and then lengthened. Bow vibrato is more comparable to the clavichord’s Tremulo in my opinion and I would use that here, should I perform the top line on a string instrument. Why did that beautiful effect fall out of use?
Both forms of tone oscillation are, according to most sources of the period (of course with a few exceptions) however regarded as ornaments to be used in good taste. Like trills, mordents etc. Trilling on every note in a piece would be an exemple of not so good taste. The same goes for vibrato and Bebung.
That is just plain wrong, I'm sorry to say. There is a type of vibrato that is indeed used as an ornament--the kind that is readily audible as such--but then there is (for string instruments at least) the variety that simply serves as an adjunct to good tone quality. This is not audible as an embellishment of the melodic line, and it is the failure to today's HIP movement to recognize the difference that is the cause of so much confusion and misdirection as regards the performance practice of string instruments. By the way, I know that Bebung on the clavichord is not the same as string vibrato, but there was no need to go into the distinctions in the course of this chat. It was simply a minor point, but for the record one is a variation in pitch, while the other is a variation in intensity--a technical distinction perhaps, but they may be perceived similarly when used, as you say, as an expressive ornament. I continue to be amazed at the routine insistence on the "vibrato is an ornament" fallacy, when the evidence to the contrary is so overwhelming, and more pertinently, so plainly a matter of common sense and basic musicality.
@@DavesClassicalGuide There are sources that favours both. As a violinist with an interest I have studied many treatises of the 18th and 19th centuries. Well, all I could get my hands on, frankly. And they do, in most cases say to use it consciously and sparingly, in good taste. It is usually placed near the end of treatises and mentioned together with the portamento. Even as late as Joachim/Moser (1905) ”… the pupil can not be sufficiently warned against the habital use of the tremolo, especially in the wrong place. A violinist whose taste is refined and healthy will always regonize the steady tone as the ruling one, and will use the vibrato only where the expression seems to demand it.”
Now, from those lines you can indeed conclude that it would be very much in period style to play with an extreme vibrato on all notes, because if no performers did so back then, Joachim, Moser and other masters would not have bothered to warn against it throughout the centuries. There are always two sides of the HIP-coin, as they say…
@@harmoniaartificiosa Well yes but again it's a question of KIND. Not "vibrato" = always one thing. It's never that, not then and not now, so why do so many HIP people pretend that it was and read the treatises accordingly (assuming, which we cannot, that they carried any authority in their day and as you mention, bear some measurable relationship to what anyone actually did).
It sounds happy (if that’s the right word) on the harpsichord, and almost somber on the piano.
Yes, very different.