D.Scarlatti transcribed for guitar by Alp Ozan Bursalioglu
Bergmann Edition: 24 pages
There are many editions of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas arranged for guitar, but let’s face it with 555 to go at, there is plenty of room without necessarily duplicating any. I happen to have 13 books already and none of them are duplicated by this latest book, the Kochel numbers of which are K127, K408, and K377.Part of the interest in this latest volume is the six pages of Preface going into great detail about the pieces, what parts were difficult to arrange, and what had to be adapted etc.
K27 , part of a collection of 30 sonatas from 1738/9 had to be looked at in quite a different way as the original was a study where the two hands crossed over constantly , not of course available on our guitar, but our guitarist’s solution to it proves very effective and sounds perfectly natural as it is. It is set in D Major and is an Allegro 3 / 4.
K408, by contrast is a much simpler piece of writing, is an Andante Alla Breve in B minor, and begins in two voices but after the first section moves into 3 voices for a while.
The final work K377 is another fast piece set in Bm and marked Allegrissimo. Much is made here of the cross string trills that play a large part in the work, and everything is fully explained in the Preface, but this piece is the hardest of the trio , but , like the other two is a wonderful piece of writing, a very effective arrangement and another piece of Scarlatti that works really effectively on our guitar.
Therefore I can only say that this latest volume is for all lovers of this man’s music and, yes, you do have to be a decent player to approach them successfully, but anyone trying these out will have a lot of fun doing so!
Chris Dumigan
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