Déjà Review: this review was first published in November 2005 and the recording is still available.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
The Complete Keyboard Sonatas (Kk Nos 1-555)
Scott Ross (harpsichord)
rec. 1984/1985, various locations in France
Reviewed as Warner Classics 2564 62092-2
Erato 2564 629945 [34 CDs: 34 hrs]
In general terms, there can be little doubt that this project is one of the most remarkable recordings ever undertaken. The sheer scale of the undertaking makes the Decca Ring look like a picnic by comparison. It was conceived to celebrate the tercentenary of Scarlatti’s birth and involved Scott Ross learning most of the works and recording them over a period of about 18 months. He was a very fine harpsichordist who was born in America, living in the South of France at the time and already suffering from AIDS. He died in 1989 at the age of 38.
I can imagine that much of the last paragraph might already have put many off. How could quality be maintained in such circumstances? Well, such preconceptions should be put aside for they are first-rate. Ross was a tasteful player who eschewed virtuosity for its own sake. He had a superb sense of rhythm, was fully equal to the technical demands of the works and he used wonderful sounding instruments. One doesn’t have to be a harpsichord “freak” or super-authenticist to enjoy these recordings. I came to Scarlatti through the piano via Horowitz and Pletnev (and still listen to them) but this is how the music should really sound.
Above all, Scarlatti’s music is the reason to get to know this set. I am not going to argue that there is a great sense of progression as one proceeds through the sonatas. What is on offer is endless invention and many surprises. Scarlatti was the master of this genre and it is no more ludicrous to think of listening to all his sonatas than to do the same for all Bach’s cantatas (which would take you about twice as long). Excluding the eight which are not for solo harpsichord, none of these works lasts more than 7 minutes and about 3-4 minutes is the average. They can be sampled in small (or large) quantities whenever the mood takes and will invariably grab one’s attention.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to acquire this set now is the recent bargain price, slimline re-issue. I have occasionally seen the original complete set behind the counter in large record shops, 34 jewel cases and costing well over £200. That was a proposition which was out of range for almost everybody and could hardly have been carried home anyway. Now it is available from Amazon at just under £90 (see link above). The presentation is very attractive and documentation superb with extensive notes on the works by Ross, a glossary and an interview with Ross about the project. The track listings alone occupy over fifty pages. The only slight disappointment is that some of the CDs are quite short – if they had been fuller (say averaging 75 minutes), this could have been fitted on to 28 CDs! One small omission from the documentation seems to a lack of comment on the pitch used. I would expect this to have been kept constant and to be flatter than modern concert pitch, and that is how it sounds.
I can’t imagine that many prospective purchasers will be new to the composer. If like me, you had been gradually building up a Scarlatti collection and realising that you were certainly going to die on the job, then this is the obvious remedy. There are a few ongoing projects aiming to record all these sonatas but as far as I am aware, only Richard Lester’s project for the Privilege Accord label is complete (link). In fact it seems more complete than this one as 13 sonatas not in Kirkpatrick’s catalogue are included and the project runs to 38 CDs costing £215. If you must have these works on the piano, then I don’t think hearing them all is going to be easy and I doubt that there is any pianist who has even contemplated it. Naxos’s series on the piano has a different pianist for each CD and has reached disc 7 after several years. At the current rate of progress you will need to be quite young and/or live very healthily to see that one out. Somehow it is hard to imagine that Ross’s achievement will ever be excelled. A single disc sample of the set is available on Elatus if you are wavering (Editor – no longer available new).
Below I have summarised briefly key information about the composer, the works, the artist and the recordings. In relation to the first two of these, if you want to know more, Ralph Kirkpatrick’s book on the composer (dating from 1953 and available in paperback published by Princeton University Press) is essential although at nearly £30 it is not cheap.
Track listings, brief remarks on the individual discs and conclusions are given on separate pages – see internal links given below. For reasons that I hope will be obvious enough, I have not made many comparisons with other recordings.
The composer
Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685, the sixth child of Alessandro Scarlatti who by then was an opera composer of considerable repute. This was a very musical family and Domenico also started off by composing operas. In early adult life he had trouble extricating himself from this father’s clutches and eventually took legal action against him. In 1719 he went to Portugal where he taught the Infanta Maria Barbara who was no mean keyboard player. In 1728 she married Crown Prince Fernando of Spain and moved to Madrid, taking Scarlatti with her. Fernando and Maria Barbara acceded to the throne of Spain in 1746. Scarlatti remained in the service of the Queen until he died in 1757. Although not as favoured by her as Faranelli, she was generous to Scarlatti, settling his gambling debts (in return for sonatas?) and then providing a pension to his second wife and children after his death. None of Scarlatti’s children were musicians but his descendants were still living in Madrid in the mid-20th century.
The works
Although Scarlatti composed other music, only the keyboard sonatas are of significant interest today. All were composed for Maria Barbara i.e. after he moved to Portugal. Only thirty of the works were published in his lifetime (in London in 1738, Kk1-30) and the majority probably date from the last few years of his life. The works were arbitrarily catalogued and published for performance on the piano by Alessandro Longo in 1906 but his editions contained many amendments and inappropriate “corrections”. The American harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-1984) prepared an approximately chronological catalogue in the 1940s and 1950s – the Kk numbers used today. Only since the early 1980s has a complete critical edition of these works been available – this was prepared by Kenneth Gilbert and used for these recordings.
Kirkpatrick’s book has a detailed chapter on the anatomy of a Scarlatti sonata. Most of them are single movements with a binary structure separated a central double bar but there are several single span fugues. In the binary sonatas, normal practice is to repeat both halves and Ross usually does so in the recordings I have heard so far, often with embellishments. Some of the sonatas are “open” (i.e. are the material opening the second half is unrelated to that opening the first half) but most are “closed” (i.e. opening the material is the same). Eight of the works are not for solo harpsichord, three of which are for organ and five for the harpsichord accompanied by other instruments. These five have three or four movements each – the only ones with multiple movements. These eight outliers (Kk Nos. 81, 88-91, 287-8, 328) are grouped together on the final disc of the set; otherwise the recordings are presented in strict Kk order. Large numbers of these sonatas are in minor keys and most have fast tempo markings although a simple Allegro is consistent with quite a wide range of tempi in Scarlatti.
One oddity is that Kk 204 is two works – in the same key (F minor) designated Kk204a and Kk204b. They are actually a pair of sonatas and I have not been able to find out why they didn’t get separate numbers in Kirkpatrick’s catalogue (a late glitch?) since he recognised that many of the works are paired. These were usually given consecutive Kk numbers, should ideally be performed back to back and are normally in the same key. A few works are part of a triptych. The implication arising from Kk204 seems to be that there are really 556 sonatas in Kirkpatrick’s catalogue rather than 555!
The final, and perhaps key, point about Scarlatti’s sonatas is that within broadly the same structure he innovated considerably technically and harmonically, and found an almost infinite amount of variety. This is why I believe it is worth exploring the whole oeuvre. Perhaps 10% of these works have become quite well known through multiple recordings, particularly by virtuoso pianists. My experience, however, is that popular does not necessarily mean better. Scarlatti’s music often looks innocent enough on the page but is said to be much more difficult to play.
The artist
Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh in 1951 but emigrated to France at the age of 14 and then studied in Nice and Paris. He was clearly an extraordinary man. The booklet reprints his obituary from The Times and a fascinating interview he gave in 1986 about the making of these recordings. It is suggested that he “played music as he played life – with a blend of freedom and discipline”. Naturally unconventional, he embraced the baroque harpsichord repertoire whilst still harbouring some desire to be a pianist. He also recorded with complete keyboard works of Rameau and Couperin but these do not seem to be available at the moment.
The recordings
This was a joint project between Erato and Radio France which ran from June 1984 to September 1985 and involved 8000 “takes”. Radio France broadcast all the sonatas in 200 programmes during 1985. In his interview Ross said that “it was a terrible wrench” when it was over. I should also laud Alain de Chambure who was the producer and the sound engineer for most of the sonatas, Alain Duchemin. Ross himself was closely involved in the editing process. The recorded sound is excellent and the quality remains consistent despite the use of several venues (most were recorded in Studios 103 and 107 of Radio France in Paris). The discs play at a consistently high dynamic level and are likely to require a cut in volume from the normal setting. Several different instruments were used, most of which were recent copies of French style double-manual harpsichords. More information on the instruments is given in the notes on the individual discs.
Conclusions
It has taken me five months to listen systematically to this set once with a few “retakes” here and there. Like Scott Ross when he was recording them, I felt bereft when I had finished. Unlike Ross I was able to go straight back and begin again and that is precisely what I did. I have also since been listening to Volume 17 of Richard Lester’s complete set. That disc contains 23 sonatas, including all 13 which are not in Kirkpatrick’s catalogue and were not recorded by Ross. It is therefore a valuable supplement but there was nothing in terms of Lester’s approach or the recorded sound that seemed preferable to Ross. Indeed, I found the 1980s Erato sound considerably more natural. Lester is clearly a fine harpsichordist but Ross was completely inside this music and has a huge price advantage for those wanting the complete set.
I hope I have made my enthusiasm for Ross’s playing clear in the foregoing. There is a consistency about his approach which is admirable, allied to formidable technique. Ross was both scholarly and practical – for example his decisions about ornamentation and repeats became predictable and the latter usually accorded with my desires to hear again or move on. He was an absolute master at the transitions between halves – invariably these were seamlessly given although that means you will often have to be smart to spot them without seeing the printed music. The sound too rarely draws attention to itself so there is nothing to come between the listener and Scarlatti’s endless inventiveness.
Although, the documentation is excellent overall, there are a few minor errors here and there, mostly relating to key signatures. Perhaps when there are more than 500 works to document, it would be surprising if there were none.
Apart from major libraries, which I hope will regard this as a mandatory acquisition, Scarlatti enthusiasts should certainly purchase this set immediately or put it on the wish list. Ideally, it should remain in the catalogue on a long-term basis but that is by no means certain. Since it is unlikely to become cheaper (other than in a sale), it would be wise not to delay too long before making the investment. For those unable to countenance 34 CD sets, there would also be place for a larger collection drawn from it than the single disc Elatus issue. Such a three disc set existed a few years ago – based on selections made by Ross – but it may be expecting too much from Warner for that to be reissued that at bargain price soon.
Without doubt, this set is a pinnacle in the history of recorded music. Profound thanks are due to Warner Classics for making it so accessible and affordable.
Patrick C Waller
Commentary on the individual sonatas (Archive): Discs 1-11 ~ Discs 12-22 ~ Discs 23-34
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