Composer: Domenico Scarlatti
Performer: Michael Korstick
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: CPO
Catalogue: 555473-2
Release: 2022
Size: 604 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
CD 01
01. Keyboard Sonata K380 in E major
02. Keyboard Sonata K9 in D minor
03. Keyboard Sonata K1 in D minor
04. Keyboard Sonata K8 in G minor (1)
05. Keyboard Sonata K8 in G minor (2)
06. Keyboard Sonata K11 in C minor
07. Keyboard Sonata K20 in E major
08. Keyboard Sonata K27 in B minor
09. Keyboard Sonata K29 in D major
10. Keyboard Sonata K32 in D minor
11. Keyboard Sonata K33 in D Major
12. Keyboard Sonata K87 in B minor
13. Keyboard Sonata K113 in A major
14. Keyboard Sonata K118 in D major
15. Keyboard Sonata K119 in D major
16. Sonata K132 in C major
17. Keyboard Sonata K135 in E major
18. Keyboard Sonata K146 in G major
19. Keyboard Sonata K162 in E major
CD 02
01. Keyboard Sonata K208 in A major
02. Keyboard Sonata K239 in F minor
03. Keyboard Sonata K247 in C sharp minor
04. Keyboard Sonata K322 in A major
05. Keyboard Sonata K427 in G major
06. Keyboard Sonata K450 in G minor
07. Keyboard Sonata K454 in G major
08. Keyboard Sonata K460 in C major
09. Keyboard Sonata K466 in F minor
10. Keyboard Sonata K481 in F minor
11. Keyboard Sonata K491 in D major
12. Keyboard Sonata K492 in D major
13. Keyboard Sonata K502 in C major
14. Keyboard Sonata K514 in C major
15. Keyboard Sonata K531 in E major
16. Keyboard Sonata K532 in A minor
17. Keyboard Sonata K159 in C major ‘La caccia’
18. Keyboard Sonata K141 in D minor
Michael Korstick presents Domenico Scarlatti’s art of inventio.
With his more than sixty prizewinning recordings, Michael Korstick has gained renown as one of Germany’s leading pianists. And now, with his new recording of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, he again sets accents and interpretive standards. The score texts, especially as far as ornamentation is concerned, often cannot be written out with precision or brought into systematic agreement in parallel passages. Much in these score texts creates the impression of a sketch and practically invites the player to make individual decisions. An improvisational element is proper to all the pieces; no sonata follows a predictable course apart from the fact that they as a rule consist of two parts, each of which is repeated. There are many characteristics in Scarlatti’s music that immediately catch the ear’s attention: wit, generosity, keen understanding, irony, sensibility, and not least a healthy portion of the self-confidence forming a supervirtuoso’s sine qua non. The combination of the most sophisticated techniques, some of them acrobatic, with extremely catchy thematic material is characteristic of Scarlatti’s sonatas, but what never fails to astonish us is also his capacity for lyrical introspection in its most various manifestations, from the greatest sorrow through the profoundest mourning to meditative absorption. Again, other pieces imitate the sounds of instruments so very different as flutes, oboes, trumpets, horns, guitars, mandolins, castanets, and drums.
This recording presents in full the thirty-two sonatas of the “Auswahlband IV” of the G. Henle Verlag as well as four of Scarlatti’s most beloved sonatas, which have been published separately by the Henle. The selection of pieces for “Band IV” has at its goal the presentation of what may be described as the essence or the “best” of Scarlatti’s art of invention.