1/7/2021 Domenico Scarlatti - Wikipedia

Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti, also known as Domingo or Doménico Scarlatti; (Naples
26 October 1685 – Madrid, 23 July 1757) was an Italian composer. He is classified primarily as
a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of
the Classical style. Like his renowned father Alessandro Scarlatti, he composed in a variety of
musical forms, although today he is known mainly for his 555 keyboard sonatas.[1] He spent
much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families.

Contents
Life and career
Music
Selected discography
Complete works
Piano recitals Domenico Scarlatti in a portrait by
Fortepiano recitals Domingo Antonio Velasco (1738)
Harpsichord recitals
Notes
References
External links

Life and career

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, Kingdom of Naples, belonging to the Spanish Crown. He was born in 1685, the same year
as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.[2] Scarlatti was the sixth of ten children of the composer and teacher
Alessandro Scarlatti. His older brother Pietro Filippo was also a musician.

Scarlatti first studied music under his father.[3] Other composers who may have been his early teachers include Gaetano Greco,
Francesco Gasparini, and Bernardo Pasquini, all of whom may have influenced his musical style. Muzio Clementi brought
Scarlatti's sonatas into the classical style by editing what is known to be its first publication.[4] He was appointed as composer and
organist at the royal chapel in Naples in 1701. In 1703, he revised Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's opera Irene for performance at
Naples. Soon afterward, his father sent him to Venice. After this, nothing is known of Scarlatti's life until 1709, when he went to
Rome and entered the service of the exiled Polish queen Marie Casimire. It was in Rome that he met Thomas Roseingrave. Scarlatti
was already an accomplished harpsichordist: there is a story of a trial of skill with George Frideric Handel at the palace of Cardinal
Ottoboni in Rome where he was judged possibly superior to Handel on the harpsichord, although inferior on the organ. Scarlatti
has been heralded as the "greatest Italian harpsichord composer of all time".[5] Later in life, Scarlatti was known to cross himself in
veneration when speaking of Handel's skill. While in Rome, Scarlatti composed several operas for Queen Casimire's private theatre.
He was Maestro di Cappella at St. Peter's from 1715 to 1719. In 1719 he traveled to London to direct his opera Narciso at the King's
Theatre.

According to Vicente Bicchi, Papal Nuncio in Portugal at the time, Domenico Scarlatti arrived
in Lisbon on 29 November 1719. There he taught music to the Portuguese princess Maria
Magdalena Barbara. He left Lisbon on 28 January 1727 for Rome, where he married Maria
Caterina Gentili on 6 May 1728. In 1729 he moved to Seville, staying for four years. In 1733 he
went to Madrid as a music master to Princess Maria Barbara, who had married into the
Spanish royal house. The Princess later became Queen of Spain. Scarlatti remained in the
country for the remaining twenty-five years of his life and had five children there. After the
death of his first wife in 1739, he married a Spaniard, Anastasia Maxarti Ximenes. Among his
compositions during his time in Madrid were most of the 555 keyboard sonatas for which he is Detail of a painting by Gaspare
best known. Traversi, showing Scarlatti tutoring
Princess Barbara of Portugal
Scarlatti befriended the castrato singer Farinelli, a fellow Neapolitan also enjoying royal
patronage in Madrid. The musicologist and harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick commented that
Farinelli's correspondence provides "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day".

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