The Scarlatti Odyssey

MY SCARLATTI ODYSSEY began with LPs of Ralph Kirkpatrick’s recordings – on the Odyssey label, in fact – after which I was lured to the piano performances by Horowitz. But I reached nirvana with the Scott Ross complete set of those solo sonatas, so varied and so fascinating that listening through all 555 of them was a delightful voyage, not a chore.

There have been many, many recordings to discover and enjoy since that time, recordings that ask me to wrench my allegiance from harpsichord to piano and back again. So it was a welcome side-trip to discover that English composer Charles Avison, who lived from 1709 to 1770, turned a number of Scarlatti’s sonatas into concerti grossi that were published in 1744, while Scarlatti was still alive.

At that point, only 30 of Scarlatti’s sonatas had been published, but they still offered a rich source of material. And Avison didn’t let himself feel constrained by the pieces he chose to include. In modern parlance, we would say he “reimagined” them, re-harmonizing and expanding them where it seemed to make sense, even adding movements (typically slower ones) to round out the form of the concerti.

There’s a new recording that showcases four of the twelve of Avison’s “Concertos in Seven Parts done from the Lessons of Domenico Scarlatti,” featuring the Spanish ensemble Tiento Nuovo, founded in 2016 by harpsichordist Ignacio Prego. The ensemble, which varies in size according to each particular project, is made up of a traditional concerto grosso ensemble, with a string quartet as concertino and a ripieno of two violins, viola, and continuo – itself made up of cello, violone (a precursor of the string bass) and organ or harpsichord.

As Prego observes in his written introduction to the recording, they have pursued an approach to ornamentation that they believe would satisfy Scarlatti, even while taking some liberties with Avison’s scoring (swapping harpsichord for violin, for example, in one of the Avison-penned slow movements).  

Each of the four Avison concertos is followed by a Scarlatti sonatas played by Prego, which reminds us of the original sound of those works. And in one case, the Sonata in C Minor, K. 11, we also can hear Avison’s reworking into the second movement of his Concerto No. 5. But that’s the only case of such overlap, which is probably a good thing. Enjoying this recording shouldn’t require you to make comparisons of the pieces, which is easily enough achievable with some online listening.

And enjoy this recording you will. It captures the spirit of Scarlatti even as it celebrates Avison’s re-working with a period-instrument sound and a modern-ensemble sense of excitement. It’s easy for music of this era to become merely background music, but this exciting ensemble rewards all the attention you dedicate to it.

Avison: Four Concerti Grossi
Based on Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti
Tiento Nuovo
Ignacio Prego, leader and harpsichordist
Glossa GCD 923526