http://www.sankey.ws/scarlattirec.html

Thank you very much Sam. This helps a great deal, now if only IMSLP was still up and I could follow along with all 555!

Matt

You can buy a CD with the complete Longo edition very inexpensively.

I just start K113 today. It's a good one!

Thank you Sam. This is great, I am sure I will learn a few of the sonatas.

Are you guys talking about that 1.4 MB zip file on that site?

I only listened to one so far (K159) but it sounds more like an arrangement than a recording, those trills are far too "computerized" to be coming from human fingers. Also, opening the MIDI for that file shows all the notes to be perfectly even, at exactly identical volume/velocities, timing to be perfectly spot on, the trills consist of perfectly identical time values, etc...

So the term "recording" is a bit misleading (I thought someone had actually learned and played all 555 sonatas). In fact "harpsichord recordings" might also be a bit misleading since it's only a MIDI file that can be assigned to be played by any computerized instrument.

thanks PJ for the info. i'd like to play a few more Scarlatti too, even though i'd been struggling to play his music well.

Yes signa. Scarlatti may seem easy at first sight but the music hides more difficulties.

I once tried K27 with no success.

Read Charles Rosen. (Nobody's fool, certainly.) He claims Scarlatti can be as difficult as Liszt... obviously in different ways, but we get the point. And after having read through a fair amount of Scarlatti...

agreed about Scarlatti. take a look at his K3, with such innocent and simple look on pages, and yet try to play it fluently and see what happens...

These are not recordings but MIDI files. A MIDI recording is not, as Theowne suggests, a recording. These MIDI files have either been created by playing the sonatas on a digital keyboard and recording the output in a sequencer (with or without subsequent editing) or, worse, they have been programmed in by hand in a sequencer or score writing programme. Or, very worst, the scores have been scanned in and interpreted by a sequencer programme.

The internet has spawned a lot of this sort of thing. It may have a documentary value to hear very obscure material but for core repertiore like Scarlatti? Give us a break! A silly fraud!

not at all

I've heard these "recordings" too, and I find them to be a bit dry like many MIDI performances.

I've played many of them, and I find that are many that very difficult to play. I purchased the complete set of the Ricordi Urtext edition (l'expensif!), and there are some in there I've never heard before along with the more common ones. In many places he used figured bass where in the modern editions the figured bass is completely ignored.

What I like about them is that they make the hands and fingers dance once you've figured out the articulation and a comfortable tempo.

John

I never listen to any MIDI. I can't stand the sound. I'd rather be without any recording. MIDI is definetely something I can live without.

I'm with AndrewG!

Regards,

well sure.

but i sure like having a listen to the notes played before buying music.