Chapter Thirteen

In Search of

Scarlatti’s Harpsichord

The search for Scarlatti’s harpsichord is hardly separable from the search for

the content of his music and for the means for the performer to make use of

the instrument in bringing out what is in the music. I once again permit myself

a certain autobiographical approach, not so much because of its inherent

interest but because it may serve in some ways as an object lesson, and certainly

certain fundamental generalizations emerge about the confl ict between the

desire of an interpreter to be faithful and the need of a performer to be effec-

tive. Most of the confl icts and mistakes that I can see in the forty odd years that

I’m thinking of in connection with this search result from this confl ict of aims

and interests. When I left high school, I knew little more about Scarlatti than

I did about the harpsichord. I knew a sonata in E minor called Pastorale in an

edition by Carl Tausig,^1 which I thought a rather trivial and slightly dull piece.

In an extended senior essay that I wrote in 1931 as a senior on the history

of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century harpsichord music is a sentence

for which I did many years of well-deserved penance. Out of the opportunism

and general lack of integrity that surrounds the production of examination

papers and term essays emerges a disconcerting note of sincerity when I refer

to Scarlatti, literally, as follows: “Domenico Scarlatti, the apotheosis of Italian

brilliance, facility, charm, and superfi ciality.” Well, of course without knowing

it, I was stating the received opinion of my time, an opinion that has not yet

entirely been demolished. In any case, I persisted in my errors for many years,

along with the rest of the world.

The next signifi cant step that I recall is buying the complete Longo^2 edition

in Rome in the spring of 1933 and sitting in a café, marking the sonatas that I

1. Domenico Scarlatti, Pastorale for Piano, arranged by Carl Tausig (New York: G.
   Schirmer, 1902).


2. Domenico Scarlatti, Opere complete per clavicembalo, ed. Alessandro Longo
   (Milan: Ricordi, 1906).
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