omenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas crop up regularly enough in recitals, most often in a group of four or five beginning a programme, or acting as a palate-cleanser between more substantial works. Concerts devoted exclusively to them are rare, but in doing precisely that harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani was on a mission to encourage his audience to see Scarlatti and his music on their own terms. “With each phrase of this truly original music”, he writes, “[Scarlatti] surprises us anew, with his humour and his empathy with his fellow humans, and ultimately reveals us to ourselves.”
Of the more than 550 sonatas Scarlatti wrote, Esfahani says, more than 90% are still largely unknown, and only 30 were published in the composer’s lifetime (as “Exercises”, in 1739). Esfahani included .....
