Domenico Scarlatti

Scarlatti's sonatas are built on unexpected contrasts—sudden key changes, crossed hands, repeated notes hammered out at breakneck speed, guitaristic strumming effects on a keyboard. He favored binary form (two balanced sections) but filled it with harmonic surprises and rhythmic tricks that feel improvisatory. Spanish guitar and folk music permeate his later works, with dance rhythms and flamenco-like flourishes transforming Italian Baroque into something new.

Son of Alessandro Scarlatti, the great opera composer, he absorbed Italian Baroque style before moving to Portugal and then Spain. His famous 'contest' with Handel in Rome shaped both composers. Spanish folk music—especially flamenco and seguidilla—became his deepest influence after he settled at the Spanish court. His teaching relationship with Princess Maria Bárbara shaped the sonatas, which were likely pedagogical as well as artistic.

His early career centered on opera and church music in Naples and Rome, but moving to Portugal (1719) and then Spain (1733) transformed him. The vast majority of his 555 sonatas were composed in Madrid for his royal patron, Maria Bárbara. His style evolved from Italian elegance to increasingly Spanish-inflected exuberance, growing bolder and more experimental with age.

In his youth, Scarlatti and Handel were brought together for a keyboard competition in Rome. According to legend, Handel was judged superior on organ, Scarlatti on harpsichord—but more importantly, the two became lifelong friends. Handel later said that when Scarlatti performed, 'the Devil was in his fingers,' a compliment to his astonishing virtuosity.

Scarlatti was enormously fat—contemporary accounts describe his difficulties at the keyboard because of his size—yet this somehow didn't prevent him from writing music requiring the most athletic hand-crossings and leaps in the Baroque repertoire. He essentially invented modern keyboard virtuosity.

Scarlatti is a keyboard recital staple, though pianists tend to program the same twenty or so sonatas repeatedly. The complete cycle has been recorded multiple times but is rarely performed live in its entirety. He's evergreen for early keyboard specialists and pianists alike, and recent years have seen increased interest in lesser-known sonatas.