D.Scarlatti, arranged by Andrew Zohn
Les Productions D’Oz: score and separate parts ( 12, 4, and 4 pages respectively )
As you know, Scarlatti’s keyboard music has many times been arranged for one or more guitars , asit so happily fits onto our instrument, so much so that in fact there are still people who think that he must have written for the guitar, which of course he didn’t.
K7 is a 3/8 movement in B minor , and marked Presto, with both guitars on a dropped D 6th.As often is the case the piece is in two sections both to be repeated. The opening is one where the 2nd guitar imitates the first guitar’s opening theme a bar later and very effective it is. Although the notes are never smaller than semi – quavers, at the desired speed, this becomes quite a handful, as nothing stops the relentless move of the music from the start to the finish, and so both players have to have a very good technique, but the piece is well worth it.
The other sonata K132 is a strange piece, which I have never come across before. Still using dropped 6ths on D , this piece of D Major is marked Cantabile, but is littered with , dare I say it, very keyboard like runs and passages that both my duo partner and I found rather cumbersome and extremely awkward to get our fingers around. Although the piece is superb piece f writing, it certainly requires a lot more than usual, technique- wise, and any players who are not exceptional are perhaps going to struggle with it in a few places.
So there you have it, one quite difficult piece, and one , to my mind, extremely difficult one, but then again, there are lots of players out there, whose technique is very good indeed, and you might probably get a great deal from this pair of pieces , for their beautifully written.
Chris Dumigan
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