24 Sonates au piano

Description

Scarlatti on piano? But by his most fervent and famous defenders, in versions carefully selected by Laurent Muraro. On record, Scarlatti anthologies are primarily rare. While Vladimir Horowitz regularly includes them in his programs, such as this hypnotic K 380 at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1951, he would wait until 1964 to dedicate an entire album to the composer. However, isolated gems began to emerge early on, where the performer seems to take it upon themselves to extract the wonders of a sonata's microcosm from a continent still largely unexplored. Like this sparkling K 14, taken from a bouquet tied together in 1952 by Robert Casadesus, or this K 159 under the fingers of Carlo Zecchi in 1937, a fireworks display of contrasts. When Simon Barere seems to be floating in the K 113, Guiomar Novaes offers us, in 1940, a sanguine and carnal Scarlatti. From Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, whose previous Indispensable (No 35) presented some tailor-made diamonds, here is another gem of tightrope walking: a Sonata K 29 captured during a recital in Arezzo in 1952. Now let’s pick from two great interpreters who, in the aftermath of the war, left their mark on the Scarlatti corpus. First, Marcelle Meyer, for Les Discophiles Français, with a superb set of twenty-seven sonatas recorded between 1946 and 1949, reissued in 1954-1955 for Emi with much better sound and a few additional sonatas… but without the delightful "Fugue du chat," which you will find here. This incredible storytelling art, this tone that is alternately lively and tender, this fantasy that invigorates the entire keyboard, combines with a clarity of lines that reminds us that Scarlatti is Bach's exact contemporary. The second major achievement of the period is the collection of eleven sonatas recorded by Clara Haskil for Westminster in 1951. A Scarlatti that is often more measured, speaking more than it challenges us, but where the keyboard is transfigured by a purity — and an obviousness — of style and playing.