inicis
Neix a Nàpols el 1685, que pertanyia al regne d’España, fill d’Alessandro Scarlatti, també músic. Als 15 anys ja té una posició d’organista. El seu pare l’envia a Venècia i el valora: “an eagle whose wings are grown; he must not remain idle in the nest, and I must not hinder his flight”. Va fer amistat amb Händel amb qui competí a l’orgue i el clavicèmbal. H hauria estat superior en l’orgue però no al clave.
El 1709 a Roma entra al servei de la reina de Polònia a l’exili Maria Casimira. Després a la cappela Giulia de St. Pietro.
Lisboa, Sevilla, Madrid
El 1719 s’estableix a Lisboa, al servei de la princesa Maria Magdalena Barbara. “In Lisbon, Scarlatti was impressed with the talent of Carlos Seixas, whom Don Antonio had suggested as a pupil. Portuguese legend holds that Scarlatti recognized the young man, then 16, as his superior; however improbable that may be, it is likely that it was Seixas who set him on a new path, the combination of elements of art and folk music. Meanwhile, another royal pupil was showing exceptional musical talent: Maria Barbara, who later, as Queen of Spain, was an indulgent and generous protectress and patron of Scarlatti, was beginning to ‘surprise the amazed intelligence of the most excellent Professors with her Mastery of Singing, Playing and Composition’”Torna a Roma per casar-se amb Maria Caterina Gentili.
El 1729 se’n va a Sevilla i després el 1733 Madrid, seguint al servei de la princesa Maria Magdalena que ara s’ha emparentat amb la família reial española.
“Clark has tried to isolate the folk elements in some of the sonatas that reflect the ‘tunes sung by the carriers, muleteers, and common people’ to which Scarlatti, a southern Italian, must have been susceptible.” “Scarlatti gave a warm welcome to his guest, who was better placed than anyone to appreciate the introduction into the sonatas of ‘many passages … in which he imitated the melody of tunes sung by carriers, muleteers, and common people’”.
[ la meva llista]
happy to be freed from that routine, he now became involved in the highly cultivated, private entertainments that Ferdinando and Maria Barbara held in their apartments, sheltered from the jealousy and resentment of Elisabetta Farnese, Philip V’s second wife. One of those taking part in these entertainments was Farinelli, risking losing the favour of the queen who had brought him to Spain and had succeeded, through the great singer’s virtuosity, in her intention of rousing Philip V from his lethargy and depression. Farinelli’s presence may have been the stimulus for the cantatas which Boyd assigns to Scarlatti’s maturity.
El 1739 mor la seva dona i es casa amb la jove Anastasia Ximenes, de Cadis.
[ Sembla que les sonates les improvisava, i una llegenda diu que le spublicava per pagar deutes: One charming legend has this work as the happy consequence of Scarlatti’s known weakness for gambling: the queen and Farinelli (who told Burney that he helped his friend in similar predicaments) are supposed to have offered the money to pay off the composer’s debts in exchange for written copies of the sonatas which Scarlatti had largely improvised in the princely apartments. The survival of the treasure that has come down to us in the royal manuscripts, inherited by Farinelli on Maria Barbara’s death, would thus be due to another, special act of ‘obedience’.]
Antoni Soler va ser el seu deixeble i potser es va encarregar de compilar algunes de les sonates.
Una placa al carrer Leganitos mostra on va viure. Els seus descendents encara viuen a Madrid.
La música es basava en la improvisació sobre un baix: not only because of the pre-eminence of the Essercizi and sonatas in his work but because even in their most developed form these pieces relate to a single stylistic model, identified by Ralph Kirkpatrick as the basso continuo. The practice of improvising an accompaniment on a bass line was a stock-in-trade of every professional musician; in the case of Scarlatti, a keyboard player of astounding virtuosity and immense creativity, the habit of condensing, of translating contrapuntal implications into harmonic structures, meant that routine formulas were gradually left behind.
Es va fer construir un instrument capaç de fer diverses veus: The document confirms that the harpsichord was ‘invented by the maker of this will’, indicates that it was built in Madrid by Don Diego Fernández and provides details of enormous interest: ‘it plays the pianos and fortes with a quill’, is ‘an eight-foot instrument’ and uses ‘three types of string, of copper, steel and gut, which play together, separately and mixed, according to the attached plan of its various registers’. All this would be extraordinary enough if it did not also have, hidden in the feet of the legs that support the instrument at each end of the keyboard, springs to engage the registers with ten stops to a pedal so that they can be operated separately or together, with ‘movable lead knobs’ used to engage one or two registers while the feet are operating the others. The registers are: (1) 4′ [ottavina], full register; (2) Archlute, full register; (3) Left hand harp, half register with gut strings; (4) Left hand 4′, half register; (5) Archlute and 4′, full register; (6) Harp and harpsichord, full register; (7) Harpsichord sounding as flute, full register; (8) Right hand, 4′, half register; (9) Right hand, harp, half register with gut strings; and (10) Harp, full register with gut strings. Sacchi relates that: By chance the queen, in talking with Farinelli, mentioned that she would like to have a harpsichord with more various tones [voci], and asked him if he had ever seen such a one. He replied that he had not. But then, leaving the queen without saying anything further, he consulted Fernández, whose talent he knew, and after they had designed the work together and executed it, he arranged for it to be found as a surprise by the queen in her apartments.This revolutionary instrument was thus the product of a passing dissatisfaction on the part of Maria Barbara and the inspiration of a hugely talented courtier and a great craftsman.
Però ell seguí component amb el seu instrument: So, while Cristofori’s and Fernández’s instruments remain legitimate and interesting options, Scarlatti’s sound world is firmly rooted in the instrument on which the young virtuoso had called up the thousand devils which so astounded Roseingrave, and which now allowed the aging maestro to interpret the songs of Iberian muleteers and carriers in the variety of approaches that give the sonatas their exceptional vitality.
La música és més harmònica que melòdica: The part played by melody in Scarlatti’s keyboard interests is marginal, given the prevalence of harmonic and rhythmic ideas in his harpsichord music. The internal structure of the sonatas is a confirmation of what is almost disavowal of melody, paradoxical for a Neapolitan but enormously significant for a composer for whom the harpsichord held no secrets. It is misleading to focus on the role of thematic elements when analysing the sonatas: Scarlatti’s approach is based rather on following the conventional harmonic span of each binary piece… so many openings, seemingly promising thematic development, give way immediately to as many ‘original and happy freaks’, based principally on lively rhythmic ambiguities and harmonic manipulations.
En la música vocal, tenim òperes [ no es conserven], cantates com els que feia el seu pare, la Contesa delle Stagioni i algunes peces religioses, com un stabat mater i un Salve Regina. No són tan originals com les sonates: It should occasion no surprise that Scarlatti’s vocal music shows little of the harmonic daring and few of the ‘happy freaks’ that characterize his mature harpsichord sonatas. The keyboard music of this period – Scarlatti’s perhaps more than most – sprang directly from the composer’s fingers in the act of improvising.