Page 36 - Ruminations

34. Demonic Domenico

Domenico Scarlatti has not received his due as one of the greats of
keyboard composition, in the same league as Bach, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin. Although he promoted himself as a
breaker of compositional rules, his surviving works show no lack of
formal design and perfection; the architecture may, like Gaudi’s, result
in structures of unfamiliar shape, but they stand the test of time,
supporting scrutiny for symmetry, pleasing contours, and human scale.
Scarlatti’s sonatas were composed in his role of servant of the
Spanish queen. He subsumed any other compositional talents in the
task of pleasing his mistress by producing pieces like small gem-
encrusted music boxes, a delight to behold as flashes of brilliant
colored light dart off in all directions.
The sources of his inspiration are well-known: Kirkpatrick found
evidence of Domenico’s early Italian years as well as the folk traditions
of his adopted land. Many of the pieces are dances; curiously, some
strike the ear as danses macabres—reflecting both the composer’s
somber personality (he primarily wore black) and the morbid
atmosphere of the court whose halls he must have haunted like a
specter. But the tunefulness and lack of baroque clutter in the sonatas
make them seem particularly advanced, ahead of their time by at least
a century (this is particularly evident when they are performed on a
piano, an instrument flattening them to modern taste).
It is also of interest that Scarlatti may be considered the first
Western composer to fuse African and European elements into a
viable hybrid. Earlier Spanish composers, owing possibly to prejudicial
conventions and habituation to their aural environment, did not seize
upon the rhythmic and tonal qualities of Andalusian music as did
Scarlatti. Among his achievements must be included the integration of
Maghrebi features into his compositional vocabulary: the modal,
dissonant, and syncopated components do not jar with counterpoint
and the Western scale; rather, Scarlatti presents a confection entirely
euphonious, the prosaic and exotic material interplaying seamlessly.
If astrology has any bearing on creative talents, then it may not be
coincidental that Scarlatti was born under the sign of Scorpio: his
music exhibits the focused intensity and visceral electricity associated
with that part of the zodiac. Listen to K.141—but played on a
harpsichord.