Twenty Sonatas: Piano Book

Scarlatti's keyboard writing cuts through centuries of stylistic evolution without sounding dated. These twenty sonatas offer advanced pianists the rare privilege of playing music that demands virtuosity in service of genuine imagination rather than empty display. Programming works from this collection signals to audiences that you're presenting serious keyboard music from music history's great innovators.

These sonatas sparkle with wit, brilliance, and harmonic daring. You'll find passages of driving rhythmic energy alongside moments of surprising tenderness, all delivered with the crystalline clarity of the harpsichord but demanding the sustaining power of the modern piano.

Advanced pianists and music majors seeking substantial Baroque keyboard repertoire beyond Bach and Handel. Teachers working with gifted students ready for music that demands technical facility and musical intelligence in equal measure.

• Approach hand-crossing passages as integral to the harmonic design, not as mere technical decoration. The crossing creates specific voicing and registers that reshape how listeners hear the melodic line.
• Shape repeated notes through subtle dynamic inflection and tonal color rather than mechanical repetition. Scarlatti uses repetition as a rhythmic and textural tool, not a test of endurance.
• Honor the binary form by distinguishing the two sections clearly in character and harmonic weight. The repeat structure means your first section establishes musical material; the second section must develop and transform it.
• Anchor wide leaps with precise rhythmic placement. Scarlatti's leap passages often occur at moments of harmonic or textural intensity; they need clarity and confidence rather than apology.

Place individual sonatas strategically in recitals to showcase technical mastery and Baroque keyboard sophistication. A single Scarlatti sonata serves well as a contrasting work between Romantic pieces or as an opener that establishes serious musical intent. Consider programming two or three from this collection across a season to build audience familiarity with the composer's voice.

• Hand-crossing coordination and independence
• Managing rapid repeated notes with control and tone color
• Executing wide intervallic leaps with accuracy and musical shape
• Understanding binary form and how to articulate formal sections through character and phrasing
• Baroque articulation and ornamentation appropriate to the keyboard idiom
• Reading figured bass implications in the harmonic language