Search - Maggie Cole :: Sonatas for Fortepiano

Scarlatti pupil on fortepiano and harpsichord

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 02/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a fan of Scarlatti (Domenico, that is), you are almost bound to enjoy this disc with eleven one-movement sonatas by his pupil Antonio Soler (1720 ? 1783), the similarity in their styles being at times quite remarkable. Let me quote the Virgin liner notes verbatim on this: ?All the sonatas featured in this recording are single binary form movements in the manner of Scarlatti, whose influence on Soler?s musical language is unmistakable in its technical brilliance and harmonic adventurousness. Scales, arpeggios and broken chords, leaps, double thirds, repeated notes and the crossing of hands are all used to brilliant effect.? In addition to the sonatas there is here also the famous ?Fandango?, which, although possibly not by Soler, is typical of the craze for keyboard music inspired by Spanish dance melodies.



British harpsichordist Maggie Cole masters all the difficulties with great bravura. She has chosen to play the first six sonatas of the recording on a fortepiano, a decision which is borne out by the result: a delicacy of sound the likes of which I have seldom heard and which could quite happily overcome any prejudice against this early version of the piano that you may have. The other pieces are played, more traditionally, on a harpsichord, and here, too, there is plenty of good listening. I was rather surprised at the choice of instruments (a Viennese fortepiano from around 1795 and a North German type harpsichord, really not what one would expect for Spanish music from around 1760), but in the end I think the sound wins out against any historical arguments. ? The quality of the 1989 digital recording (total time over 70 minutes) is impeccable.

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