Light On Dark Water

The first Scarlatti I ever heard was a collection played on the harpsichord by Wanda Landowska. And for a long time I didn’t want to hear his music played any other way. The truth is that I have never really loved the sound of the piano, in spite of all the great music that’s been written for it. And I’ve always liked the sound of the harpsichord. Now that I think about it, that Landowska recording may have been the first time I heard the instrument; certainly one of the first times, anyway, as it was back when I was in college.

But I’m beginning to change my mind. I don’t own the Landwoska recording (I think it was out of print for a long time) but I have a couple of other Scarlatti-on-harpsichord recordings and never really warmed up to them. The sound often seemed just as jangly and clanky and buzzy as people who don’t like the harpsichord have always accused it of being. I’ve begun to wonder if maybe it was something in the atmosphere of the Landowska recording that I liked; it was recorded in the ‘50s at the latest, maybe earlier, and perhaps the poorer reproduction actually improved the sound of the instrument.

Anyway, I’ve recently been comparing piano and harpsichord versions and finding that I prefer the piano: more expressive, more varied, more clear, and generally more listenable for a longer period of time (although three or four Scarlatti sonatas in a row is usually enough). I’ve heard four versions of K.380, one of my favorites (if you’ve ever heard much Scarlatti you’d probably recognize it): two piano, two harpsichord. Only one of these is by a performer, Horowitz, generally considered great, so maybe the comparison is unfair, but I do like his best of the four. I resisted it a bit, as Horowitz seems to play Scarlatti as if he were Chopin, which doesn’t seem exactly right, but, still, it’s very beautiful.

The Horowitz performance is from a Carnegie Hall appearance in 1968, found on YouTube, though with fairly bad sound. (I have the same sonata on an LP, Horowitz in Moscow, but I like this performance better.)

And here’s a harpsichord version; compare for yourself—the instruments, anyway; it’s probably not fair to compare the performers..

By the way, both these seem to omit some repeats, or something: at any rate they’re barely half as long as the other performances I have (Michele Campanella on piano, Richard Lester on harpsichord ). I’m inclined to think the omissions are a good idea, much as I like this sonata. And I do still like the sound of the harpsichord, but less as a solo instrument than as a color mixed with strings or other instruments.

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