Les préludes: Part 2

As I’ve explained previously, I precede each Scarlatti sonata with an introduction based on themes of the sonata, over a series of ii-V-I progressions, the number of ii-V-I progressions matching the number of the concert and of the sonata in chronological order of composition (according to the scholarship and best guesses of Ralph Kirkpatrick, harpsichordist and editor, hence the “K” numbers).

The ii-V-I progressions do not stay in the key of the sonata, but modulate through a variety of different keys. The first ii-V-I is in the home key, and the last one has to set up the beginning of the sonata itself. Usually this means the last ii-V-I must also be in the home key, though a couple of times I’ve ended the intro elsewhere, making the opening a bit of a tonal surprise; but even then, the key is not random, but chosen for good effect.

That means the series of progressions has to satisfy two different conditions: it has to be the correct length (number of ii-V-I progression) and it has to start and end in the appropriate key, while also making harmonic sense along the way. This is not something I can do on the fly. It's not hard to end up in the right place harmonically, but tricky to get there at the right time; not only is it a challenge to think ahead to make the keys work out after the exact number of ii-V-I progressions, but after maybe 8 progressions it's hard to keep count.

So I have to plan out the series of chord progressions, at least. But the introduction also has to relate to the thematic material of the sonata it introduces. I go through the sonata and look for motives that I can fit to ii-V-I progressions while still keeping their motivic identity clear. Actually, I do this as I work out the harmonies, not afterwards, because while certain chord sequences are idiomatic and generically satisfying, melody and rhythm and harmony are all interrelated, and must work together to create convincing progression. So I always work through my intros with at least a rough idea of which Scarlatti motives I plan to use in which phrases. Sometimes a rough idea is all I set in advance, and the intros are somewhat more improvised; at the other extreme, particularly if I figure out something especially wonderful, or if I don’t have sufficient practice time to be confident that my improvising will come through convincingly, on a couple of occasions I’ve written out my intro note for note.

But most of the time I just write out the harmonic progression as a “cheat sheet” of chord-symbol abbreviations. Sometimes I also write measure numbers or short musical descriptions to indicate which Scarlatti motive I plan to use where, but that’s just to remind me as I work the intros out; by the time I’m ready to perform an intro, that basic game plan has usually been internalized, even if details are left to improvisation. Sometimes I internalize the overall chord progression too, so I don’t need a cheat sheet at all.

Here are a few examples of my intro notes. I don’t know if these are among my favorites; no. 25 just happened to still be handy (I’ve tossed most of them) and the other two are here because they’re the rare examples of fully written-out intros.

K.25 intro. Measure numbers and text refer to the thematic material of the sonata.

K.16 intro. It’s rare that I write the intro out completely.

K.30 intro, another fully written-out one. The sonata is the “Cat’s Fugue”, so called because of its strikingly disjunct subject that made people imagine Scarlatti was inspired by his cat walking across the keyboard. I tried to keep that feeling in my intro, which made me think of Thelonious Monk (though it doesn’t sound so Monkish to me listening now). That’s why in my note to play the opening in a flexible tempo, I wrote “rubato my dear”, a play on Monk’s tune “Ruby My Dear”. I was hoping that seeing this little pun, and addressing myself with a term of endearment, would put me at ease.

The close reader will note that the intro to no. 30 does not, in fact, consist of 30 ii-V-I progressions, but rather 30 chords. From the start of this project, people (including me) have asked what I’m going to do when I get into the sonatas numbered in (say) triple digits. You can make a ii-V-I progression go by slower or faster, but at some point the intro is going to dwarf the sonata. And, as I may have mentioned, learning the sonata and figuring out the intro is already a large—often the largest—demand on my practice time. I didn’t really have a plan for what to do when the intros started to get out of hand; I figured I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

It turned out that bridge was in Essex Junction (concert no. 26). Preparing the intros had become more and more stressful, and going into the Essex Junction concert it was too much for me to try to sustain interest that long while restricting myself to themes from the sonata that lent themselves to a ii-V-I harmonic pattern. A day or two before the concert I realized I could instead play 26 measures of ii-V-I (which typically equates to about half as much music). After 25 intros with a single inflexible rule, this option was incredibly liberating! 

And in no. 30, I played 30 chords’ worth of ii-V-I’s (roughly 1/3 as long, though not always exactly because it’s possible for a sequence of ii-V-I’s to elide, such that the target I chord becomes the ii of the next cycle). And who knows: when I get into higher cardinalities, I could do n beats’ worth, or even n notes’ worth.

It felt fitting that the pattern broke in Essex Junction, since it was Essex Junction’s disjunction from the Town of Essex in July 2022 that broke my ii-V-I pun by bringing the number of Vermont municipalities from 251, where it had stood for 100 years exactly, to 252.