Archiv Produktion
2004
Domenico Scarlatti - Sonatas For Harpsichord
About This Album
Since the very dawn of the compact disc era, Ralph Kirkpatrick's seminal recordings of Domenico Scarlatti have mainly been conspicuous only by their absence from the active catalog. It's hard be sure just why, as all along listeners and reviewers alike have been requesting their return. Kirkpatrick's Bach has been reissued here and there, along with some oddities, including a live, all twentieth century recital Kirkpatrick performed in 1961, released on Music and Arts. But of the Scarlatti, nothing -- how could the man who put the "K." in Scarlatti go neglected; were not his performances once considered the acme in Scarlatti played on the harpsichord?

Thankfully now the wait is over, as Deutsche Grammophon's Archiv Produktion is finally making its Kirkpatrick holdings available as part of the "Blue" series in an album entitled Domenico Scarlatti: 21 Sonatas for Harpsichord. This includes the entire contents of the classic 1971 stereo album issued as Archiv 2553 072 and three 1966 recordings made for the little-known Deutsche Grammophon recital disc Ralph Kirkpatrick, Cembalo (DG 139 122). As by now an entire generation of music lovers have been raised without the benefit of Kirkpatrick's Scarlatti to listen to, one might wonder -- how well does it hold up? How does it sound, now that listeners have heard Scarlatti players such as Pierre Hantaï, Scott Ross, Eiji Hashimoto, or Mayako Sone?

Excellently well, thank you -- from the first it is apparent that Kirkpatrick's approach to Scarlatti was even more flexible in tempo and approach than recalled.
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