Alessandro Scarlattis Instrumentalmusik

Instrumental music occupies a peripheral place in Alessandro Scarlatti’s OEuvre: compared with the 800 cantatas ascribed to him, there are only about 70 instrumental works. In addition, due to the paucity of surviving source material – and the associated problems of dating and contextualisation – these works have so far received little attention in research and practice. Scarlatti’s instrumental music, however, is characterized on closer examination by an astonishing variety of contemporary instrumental forms and traditions. In his keyboard music for harpsichord or organ, Scarlatti mainly dealt with the toccata. On the one hand the toccatas suggest a didactic purpose, on the other it can be observed that the individual sections tend to be extended to gain a degree of self-sufficiency. In addition, Scarlatti wrote compositions for instrumental ensembles with different combinations of instruments. In this field he integrated the characteristics of different genres, such as the Concerto grosso and Sinfonia. Furthermore, there is a conspicuous preference for the ›flauto‹, which appears to be placed an equal footing with the violin and is favoured as a solo instrument.