Search - Igor Kamenz :: Igor Kamenz Plays Scarlatti

The biography of Igor Kamenz, one that virtually cries out to be filmed, is the story of a man for whom only music has ever counted. As a child prodigy, he gave widely admired piano recitals in the Soviet Union and conducted major orchestras at an early age. After his emigration to Germany in 1978, he maintained a career as a concert pianist. In 2013, by an almost incredible combination of circumstances, a CD featuring his playing came into the hands of a major management company and of Naïve, who were immediately captivated by his talent and his musical personality: it was the start of a new chapter . . . Domenico Scarlatti, born in Naples in 1685, the same year as Bach and Handel, son of the celebrated opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti, a universe unique in musical history, the 555 harpsichord sonatas that have come down to us only in copy. In their variety, their inventiveness, their harmonic and timbral audacity, their vivacity, their impulsiveness, their fruitful tension between vibrant Mediterranean joie de vivre and sombre melancholy, they form miniature psychological studies that look forward far into the Romantic era, indeed the twentieth century. Igor Kamenz has assembled the sonatas played here on a modern concert grand into what he calls a suite in eighteen movements, whose ordering follows criteria related to the dramaturgy, key and content of the pieces. Detailed track-list includes: Sonata in D major, K96, allegrissimo Sonata in E major, K381, allegro Sonata in D major, K119, allegro Sonata in B minor, K197, andante Sonata in E major, K135, allegro Sonata in A major, K322, allegro Sonata in A minor, K109, adagio Sonata in D minor, K141, allegro Sonata in D major, K492, presto Sonata in G major, K146, [no indication] Sonata in C minor, K11, allegro Sonata in F major, K17, presto Sonata in B minor, K27, allegro Sonata in B minor, K87, [no indication] Sonata in E major, K380, andante commodo Sonata in A major, K209, allegro Sonata in A major, K101, allegro Sonata in D major, K29, presto.