The Sonatas themselves

Preludes aside, learning a new Scarlatti sonata for each concert is often the largest claim on my practice time, sometimes by far—and even so the result is often less than I hope for. Well, almost every performance of anything is less than hoped for, but I mean they’re often pretty rough and not something I’m really comfortable posting online.

When I started, as I’ve said, I had never learned a single Scarlatti sonata. The commitment to learn a new one for every concert (actually two, according to my original plan) was, like the entire project, a leap of faith. By telling myself I was capable of doing this, I was willing it to be so, willing myself to be a more mindful, efficient, intentional, and musical practicer, one with more conventionally virtuosity than I felt I owned.

And it went reasonably smoothly for the first dozen or so concerts, which took place at the end of a sabbatical semester and in the summer following. But when my teaching started up again in the fall, learning the Scarlatti became an often hectic and stress-inducing element of the project. Even when all went well, I was increasingly aware that it was handicapping another quixotic ambition: to learn a lot of new repertoire, including works by contemporary Vermont composers and more music by women. I began to question my Scarlatti commitment. 

As it happened, the end of the first, busy academic year of this project coincided with a landmark in the Scarlatti cycle. Though he wrote 555 of the things, in his lifetime Scarlatti published only a single volume of 30 Sonatas (or Exercises, Essercizi, as he called them in this publication) which are nos. 1-30 in the now-standard Kirkpatrick numbering. And concert no. 30 was scheduled on the day of UVM Commencement, the endpoint of my semester obligations. Completing the 30 Essercizi, which finish with the monumental Cat’s Fugue, would bring me to a convenient milestone where I could gracefully announce a change in plans. Also, the following concerts, nos. 31 and 32, were a double-header (back-to-back concerts on the same weekend), which would add to the challenge of preparing the sonatas in time. So I told myself that I’d at least get through these iconic first thirty, then reassess.

And then...it was as if Scarlatti* saw me coming. Sonata no. 31 is a notch less virtuosic and complex than most of the sonatas in the Essercizi, while Sonata no. 32 (titled “Aria”) is slow and melodic and, at less than a full page, maybe 20% the average sonata length: easily the most sight-readable one thus far, though so gorgeous and subtle that it rewards loving preparation. It was like Domenico was apologizing for having ridden me a little too hard, and was now coaching me along: All right, ease up, come on, you got this! 

So I’m strapping back in for another round.

*Or Ralph Kirkpatrick, the harpsichordist and musicologist who assembled and numbered the most complete and scholarly edition of the sonatas. Kirkpatrick’s ordering is chronological, not arbitrary, but there is uncertainty and editorial discretion involved.