Today, the Iberian peninsula's greatest composer, who happens to be a Southern Italian. Domenico Scarlatti spent his last thirty years at various royal Spanish courts, and there never has been so influential or universal beloved music written on Spanish soil - even if he's regarded as only the #4 composer of his generation.
Some art is perfect, perhaps there is a level of artistic communion past perfection; perhaps you need to muss up a work in order to reach for infinity, but who can begrudge composers their perfection when their compositions are as extraordinary as Schubert songs, Tallis motets, Dvorak Slavonic Dances, Gabrieli brass canons, Bach fugues, Byrd pavans and galliards, Debussy preludes, Monteverdi madrigals, Ligeti etudes, Faure salon pieces, Bartok violin duets, Chopin.... everything? etc. etc. etc.
But then you run into Scarlatti's keyboard music, and you realize that you've never dealt with anything quite as perfect in the world. We all may sometimes prefer the longer form, the music which takes its time to warm up rather than have to be on alert from the first moment. Something about perfection is inherently unlovable and demanding. Life is not perfect, why should art be?
Is Scarlatti better than perfect? Well,... yes and no. Scarlatti, much like the royal Baroque society which patronized him, is incredibly ostentatious, more interested perhaps in show than substance. But in order to express the spirit of his time and place, he had to plume his society's extravagance on high display. Within all that electricity and sensuality is rage, joy, pleasure, sadness, heartbreak.... One does necessarily find similar sincerity within many of the most flashy composers (Liszt... there I said it...).
One can be forgiven, as I must be, for thinking that Bach is generally better when played with the piano's singing legato. Bach is profundity, even when he expects to be played on the harpsichord, he's clearly writing with an instrument like the organ in mind that can sing, and no Bachian was ever more persuasive than Wanda Landowska, who played Bach on a harpsichord the size of a Cadillac, complete with pedals and organ registers. Surely this is far closer to the singing, spiritual instrument Bach meant. But if Bach sings, Scarlatti dances, if Bach moves the spirit, Scarlatti electrifies the body. Great Scarlatti requires the percussive effect that only a grungy harpsichord can give. Piano Scarlatti can be magnificent when played by a magnificent pianist: when you have great music played by Horowitz, Gould, Gilels, Pogorelich, Michelangeli, Lipatti, Pletnev, Schiff, Argerich, Ciccolini, Tipo, Grinberg, why the hell would you quibble about the instrument? There are even recordings of Bartok playing Scarlatti! But when you listen to great harpsichord players: players like Wanda Landowska, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Gustav Leonhardt, Zuzana Ruzickova, Igor Kipnis, Ton Koopman, Trevor Pinnock, Anthony Newman, Pierre Hantai, Jean Rondeau, Mahan Esfahani, you realize that the harpsichord operates on a level of 'punk rock' to which a piano just can't ascend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3p4pGd838
No comments:
Post a Comment