ABSTRACT
Domenico Scarlatti’s changing reputation has reflected the depictions of his successive biographers. For the eighteenth-century music historian Dr. Charles Burney, Scarlatti was a keyboard composer of “original and happy freaks,” a judgment the nineteenth century confirmed by limiting performances of Scarlatti to a few sonatas at the beginning of a piano recital. A more serious evaluation began in 1935 with a monograph on Scarlatti by Sacheverell Sitwell, reflecting Sitwell’s pioneering interest in southern Baroque art. In 1953 the distinguished harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick published the first full-scale study of Domenico Scarlatti as a major composer of keyboard music. Employing new biographical material, Kirkpatrick presented an evocative picture of Scarlatti’s life and surroundings, a survey of his output as then available, an analytical model for the sonatas, an examination of Scarlatti’s instruments, a discussion of performance and performance practice, a detailed enumeration of the musical sources, and a catalogue of works (amplified to a thematic catalogue of the sonatas in the German edition of the book). As a musician, Kirkpatrick was able to embody his knowledge in editions, performances (including a series of all-Scarlatti recitals), and recordings that established Scarlatti as perhaps the greatest idiomatic composer for the harpsichord, influencing two generations of players, scholars, and listeners.
