Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner D. Scarlatti sonatas recommendation

Can anybody recommend the easier sonatas D. Scarlatti wrote?. I believe there are over 500 known sonatas. Most of them will be for ever beyond my capability due to technical and speed difficulties. However sonatas like K263, Longo 321 or K 466, are not only very nice but present no many technical or speed difficulties.

I`m really looking for the Largo to Allegretto tempo and frankly I find a bit daunting to have to go through the lot to find the easier ones, added to it I haven`t got the scores either.

Thank you and may the baroque spirit be with you.

One of the most famous ones -- beautiful and not that hard to play because the tempo isn't very fast and actually it can go pretty leisurely: L. 23 (K. 380)

K.466\L.118 is also very beautiful and reasonably achievable because of its leisurely pace.

Here's a video, if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV3Avalm5KM

(How do you do that video thing where it shows up in the post?)

Good pick, Seabelle.
BTW I'm the guy who liked your avatar a few weeks ago.


I imagine you usually use the "Quick Reply" at the bottom of the page? It's harder to do if you use that, although I think it would work if you type:
[video:youtube][/video]

.....and then enter the video's web address between the two brackets.

Here's what most people probably do (it's much easier than the long explanation makes it look):

Hit the "Reply" (or "Quote") button on the post that you're replying to. That gives you a new page with a blank field for your post. Just above that field is a bunch of icons. Click the 4th one from the left (the one that looks sort of like a TV screen). You'll get a drop-down menu of 4 choices. The bottom one is YouTube. If you click on that.....well it turns out that the next step after that is a little silly.

You'll get a "box" up above for entering the web address of the video, and you could do that if you wanted, but it's unnecessarily hard. Just enter ANYTHING in there -- I usually enter just the letter "a". (If your computer allows you to copy/paste the web address of the video in there, do it. Mine seems not to.)

That puts a youtube link in your post. If you copy/pasted the video's web address already, then you're all set. If you just typed "a" or whatever (as I do), then you have to replace the "a" with the web address, by copy/pasting over it.

It's much easier than I probably made it sound.

Most concise. I implemented your advice and posted some pictures in another topic. Thank you. I also tried to PM you because I noticed someone said something rather unkind in another thread, but it didn't work for some reason. They said they had you on an ignore list, or something ridiculous like that, but I happen to find you consistently insightful and interesting.

And I do recall you mentioning my avatar recently. I enjoyed it.

K. 466 is breathtakingly lovely. I don't usually aspire to play classical pieces, but that one is on my list.

L33 has always been my favourite. As for difficulty, I'm not sure. I've seen the score, and it appears to be manageable, but I'm yet to attempt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lmqDOjHx70

Seabelle -- thanks very much -- I really appreciate it.
That guy doesn't bother me. As they say, you can't please everybody.

It's very manageable for almost anybody. I think the hardest part is a little bit into the second section, where you have to do some tough things with the 4th and 5th fingers of the R.H. (I think the only way to get around that would require huge stretches of the hand, which I think would be even harder.)

Thank you to everyone for the recommendations. Somebody told me about www.cantorion.com and there they have all the sheets for G D Scarlatti sonatas and I now can choose the slow tempo ones.

I find them excellent for leaning and practising as some of them were composed for that purpose as exercises.

Yes. IMO they're great for just about everything -- exercises, warming up, performance, you name it.