Episode Details

Domenico Scarlatti spent the first half of his career in his father's shadow, writing competent Italian operas that no one remembers. Then he moved to Spain, heard flamenco guitars and castanets, and reinvented himself. The 555 keyboard sonatas he composed in Madrid are among the most original works of the eighteenth century.

This episode traces Scarlatti from Naples through his liberation in the Spanish court, where distance from Italian convention freed him to write music that sounded like nothing else in Europe.

• He composed 555 keyboard sonatas, nearly all of them during his years in Spain and Portugal
• His music incorporated Spanish folk rhythms and flamenco guitar effects unprecedented in Baroque music
• He lived in the shadow of his famous father Alessandro Scarlatti for decades
• His sonatas remained largely unknown until the twentieth century brought them renewed attention