Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) was an Italian composer and harpsichordist of the Baroque era, a contemporary of Bach and Handel. Although he wrote operas and sacred music too, he went down in history above all for his unsurpassed keyboard sonatas.
Scarlatti created more than 550 single-movement sonatas for harpsichord — a veritable encyclopedia of virtuoso playing. In them he experimented boldly: leaps across the whole keyboard, hand-crossings, rapid repeated notes, and vivid Spanish intonations heard during his years at the courts of Portugal and Spain. These brilliant, witty, and strikingly modern-spirited pieces were ahead of their time and remain to this day a favourite repertoire of pianists and harpsichordists around the world.
