Andrea Molteni — Scarlatti: Sonatas (2021)

FLAC (tracks), Lossless | 1:15:03 | 269 MbClassical, Instrumental

\’A strange but wonderful album\’: one of the accolades for Andrea Molteni\’s debut album on Piano Classics, of the piano works by his countrymen Dallapiccola and Petrassi (PCL10222). For a sequel, he turns to the endlessly inventive store of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, who drew on his own extraordinary abilities at the keyboard to produce the illusion of written improvisations within a basic two-part form which left routine formulas of keyboard composition farther and farther behind. In a booklet conversation with the pianist and Lisztian Leslie Howard, Molteni explains that he has selected 18 lesser-known sonatas in a sequence which moves through the keys in the manner of The Well-Tempered Clavier, bning with the A major virtuoso flourishes of K24 and ending with the G minor of K546. Howard praises the clarity and luminosity of Molteni\’s touch; the sensitivity of his approach to ornamentation, which carefully emulates the effects and articulation available on a harpsichord as much as possible; strong dynamic contrasts; and the breathing pauses between sections, which allow for a change of registration like a harpsichord stop. Without observing the traditional pairings of Scarlatti\’s sonatas, Molteni\’s sequence encompasses the violinistic figurations of the early sonatas from the composer\’s residence in Rome as well as the fandangos and guitaristic flourishes of his later and much longer stay in Madrid in service to the Princess (then Queen) Maria Magdalena Barbara. Scarlatti himself professed an aim of \’ingenious jesting with art\’ in a preface to one of volume of sonatas, and Molteni proves himself more than equal to the required balance between musical sophistication and virtuoso demands.
Tracklist
01. Sonata in A Major, K. 24
02. Sonata in A Minor, K. 532
03. Sonata in B-Flat Major, K. 266
04. Sonata in B-Flat Minor, K. 131
05. Sonata in B Major, K. 262
06. Sonata in B Minor, K. 173
07. Sonata in C Major, K. 421
08. Sonata in C Minor, K. 126
09. Sonata in D Major, K. 33
10. Sonata in D Minor, K. 138
11. Sonata in E Major, K. 20
12. Sonata in E Minor, K. 232
13. Sonata in F Major, K. 17
14. Sonata in F Minor, K. 184
15. Sonata in F-Sharp Major, K. 319
16. Sonata in F-Sharp Minor, K. 67
17. Sonata in G Major, K. 425
18. Sonata in G Minor, K. 546