132 ❧ chapter thirteen
the keyboard instruments owned by Queen Maria Barbara of Spain, for whom
the Scarlatti sonatas were written. The listings and conclusions can be found in
my book, but the most drastic of these conclusions even then didn’t lead me to
take full advantage of them as an interpreter. This inventory pointed to the fact
that the Scarlatti instrument was much simpler than one would have thought
for such an elaborate and complicated oeuvre for harpsichord. The Queen
had harpsichords of various dispositions. She also had early pianos. It is signifi -
cant that some of them had been converted back into harpsichords; but from
the range cited in connection with the instruments, it was evident that the only
instruments in the Queen’s possession on which the late full fi ve-octave sona-
tas of Scarlatti could be played were instruments with only two sets of strings.
It is not stated, but the inference is more than justifi ed that these were classic
Italo-Spanish harpsichords with two 8-foot choirs and one manual; in other
words, the direct ancestors of the early pianos of Cristofori and other Italian
makers—hence the ease with which the early pianos could be converted back
into harpsichords. Specifi c measurements have been added by the writings of
Russell^6 and Hubbard, since no instruments have turned up to throw any more
light on Scarlatti’s harpsichord than these inventories. This does not exclude
the possibility that more will one day come to light.
The next period, from 1947 roughly to 1954–55, was one of very intense
development in infl uence and change as an interpreter. But the demands
(or apparent demands) of concert performance pulled in a direction which
was quite different from that indicated by the Queen’s inventory. I made fur-
ther recordings of Scarlatti in 1947–48. At some time which I don’t remem-
ber, probably around 1949, I played for the fi rst time a complete program of
Scarlatti sonatas. This meant that I felt enough penetration into the musical
language to be able to make it hold up for the evening. But I remember some
of the registrations; I remember the instruments that I was using during these
years. One of these instruments and many of the registrations are preserved
in the Columbia album of the sixty sonatas that I recorded in 1954. There are
tricks of an incredible complexity and of pedal pushing. It seemed at the time
the only instruments (and this was more or less true) which had suffi cient car-
rying power and stability to withstand the rigors of the concert hall and of the
recording studio had defi ciencies of tonal quality that simply forced all kinds
of registrations upon one that were far from being the obvious and natural
thing in terms of what we know about the classic Italian harpsichord. It was
impossible, for example, in many spots, to use perfectly simple 8-foots. It was
one of the most classic sounds of harpsichord literature—the coupling of two
8-foots—and was the very worst sound in most of the instruments I was using,
- Raymond Russell, The Harpsichord and Clavichord: An Introductory Study
(London: Faber & Faber, 1959).
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