A Man Of Genius

Description

After dedicating his first two albums for Arcana to Johann Sebastian Bach (Little Books, A480) and Georg Friedrich Handel (Winged Hands, A499), Francesco Corti turns to Domenico Scarlatti, the third great keyboardist of the 1685 generation. He has selected for this recording a corpus of sonatas copied in 1752 and 1753, strictly organized in pairs. By focusing on works from the same period, he highlights the extraordinary ability of the composer to push the boundaries of the sonata form and to develop his thematic material in depth. Instrumental virtuosity and an experimental approach to the sound of the harpsichord go hand in hand with an astonishing formal freedom, combined with a playful sense of structure and expectation. Corti chose to interpret these sonatas on a Humeau harpsichord, a copy of Italian models (with the kind permission of Bertrand Cuiller), and to record them at the Abbey of Royaumont.