Review by: Jed Distler

What a wonderful idea: Here’s a program that features transcriptions of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas along with original works that use the sonatas as a jumping-off point. Many Classical- and Romantic-period composers and pianists felt the need to update Scarlatti’s keyboard textures by filling in chords, adding double notes or octaves, or spicing up the harmonies. Politically incorrect by 21st-century standards, true, but “inauthenticity” can be fun, especially in the hands of a pianist like Sandro Russo.

He revels in Louis Brassin’s unabashedly upholstered transformation of the K. 525 F major sonata and its humorously leaping embellishments, and conveys the full impact of Granados’ subtle, full-bodied piano writing with little help from the sustain pedal. The multi-layered strands of Ignaz Friedman’s busy rewrite of K. 523 suggests an overdubbed second piano, while Russo captures the impetuous quality of Marc-André Hamelin’s bitonal Scarlatti-based etude with no less sparkle than in the composer’s own performances. And although several pianists have taken up Raymond Lewenthal’s nutty, harmonically pungent Scarlatti-like Toccata in recent years, Russo’s crisp rhythms and slightly dry touch are just what the doctor ordered. Even after you’ve finished playing this disc, your ears will continue to smile.

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Turning Scarlatti on his head

by Michael Johnson

You would have to be quite a sure-footed composer to believe you could improve on something as perfect as the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. These intensely vital pieces were crafted meticulously with beginnings, middles and ends, combining melody and harmony with the occasional daring touch of dissonance. Some 300 years after Scarlatti wrote his incredible 555 sonatas, most of them are still fresh and exciting.

Yet Scarlatti considered these works to be mere light-hearted entertainment, “jesting with art”, in his words. He urged listeners to be “more human than critical”.

In modern performances, Ivo Pogorelich and Vladimir Horowitz have set the bar high for piano versions, and other pianists must strive to reach their standards.

So it was with some skepticism that I switched on the new CD Scarlatti Recreated(Musical Concepts, MC149), which for the first time pulls together 19 examples of Scarlatti “recreations” – rewritings of some of the favorite sonatas. Purists can yelp and cry foul; I found real music of a similar yet different texture in these works.

Sicilian pianist Sando Russo has the skills, sensitivity and respect for Scarlatti required for navigating these reworkings, most of them more demanding pianistically than the originals.

He has collected a diverse selection of Scarlattish sonatas, some of which have appeared on other CDs, some of which are encore-type recital offerings, and two of which are getting their world premiere as recordings here.

Transcriptions in classical music are nothing new, but Russo’s picks are mostly purposeful – the 19th century transcribers sought to inject expanded pianoforte dynamics to the one-dimensional harpsichord sound, and in most cases update the music with contemporary ideas. Call them pastiches, homages or imitations, they all bring the familiar originals to mind but with a twist. None quite overflow into caricature.

Intentionally or not, Russo’s ordering of the pieces builds slowly from minor tinkerings such as Carl Tausig’s up-tempo renderings of the E Major K. 20 and the C Major K. 487 to more personal expressions of Marc-André Hamelin and the delightful Jean Françaix, to the very contemporary (and my favorite) piece by the American Michael Habermann.

Attentive listeners will wonder what the excitement is all about through the first 12 pieces, then come the real departures. First, Ignaz Friedman with his melodic Pastorale, followed by his bouncy Gigue. And Hamelin’s version, described in the program notes as a “purely affectionate tribute”, although he admits the sonatas are “very easy to make fun of”.

And the CD reaches a climax with Habermann’s Homage, a strongly contemporary refitting of the original sonata L. 104. Habermann, a professor at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, is known for his scholarly work on Sorabji and his interpretations of contemporary works. He clearly enjoyed himself in this Homage.

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Scarlatti Recreated

Arrangements and homages to Scarlatti by Tausig, Brassin, Granados, Czerny, Friedman, Alkan, Hamelin, Françaix, Lewenthal and Habermann (see end of review for full track-listing)

Sandro Russo (piano)

rec. 28 November 2012 and 19 February 2013, Oktaven Studios, New York City, USA

MUSICAL CONCEPTS MC 149 [61:46]

Sandro Russo’s Scarlatti Recreated brings together nineteen arrangements, expansions, and homages to Domenico Scarlatti. Some of the composers just wanted to “update” Scarlatti’s writing so that it fits the piano better; some endeavoured to make them harder to play; some were simply fascinated by Scarlatti and his art. This album is similar in concept to Joseph Moog’s recentScarlatti Illuminated (they have three tracks in common), only Russo’s playing is more consistently outstanding.

Russo, I should emphasize, really is outstanding. He proves a great guide to the different transcribers and their styles. The second of Louis Brassin’s arrangements is a merry romp, calling to mind not just Scarlatti but Couperin. Enrique Granados is a superb arranger, and he imposes less of himself on the music than certain others, particularly Ignaz Friedman. When I reviewed Joseph Moog’s album, I said Friedman’s pastorale after Scarlatti sounded more like Scriabin; here it takes on an almost jazzy aspect, or at least Percy Grainger-ish.

Jean Françaix contributes a typically witty homage which includes quotations by composers who are not Scarlatti. What did you expect from a work called Promenade of an Eclectic Musicologist? Marc-André Hamelin also lives up to expectations, in that his tribute is staggeringly difficult to play and loaded with amusing dissonance. Raymond Lewenthal’s comparatively straight homage ends with an Ives-like “wrong” chord.

Russo’s skills as a programmer must also be praised. Not many pianists would include notorious study-music writer Carl Czerny, who gets a world-premiere recording for his own brilliant mimicry of Scarlatti’s style. The seven Enrique Granados pieces are skilfully arranged into a suite, the “slow movement” (from K. 109 in A minor) moving so seamlessly into the finale (from K. 211 in A major) that you’ll surely be dazzled.

The pianist’s Hamburg Steinway is consistently pure in tone, and the recorded sound cannot be criticized. It’s fitting that this is released on the label Musical Concepts, since it is a concept album of the best kind.

< Brian Reinhart >

Full Track-Listing

Carl Tausig (1841-1871)

Capriccio in E (Scarlatti Sonata K. 20)

Sonata in C (Scarlatti Sonata K. 487)

Louis Brassin (1840-1884)

Andante in B flat minor (Sonata K. 377)

Scherzo in F (Sonata K. 525)

Enrique Granados (1867-1916)

From the 26 Sonatas Inéditas

Sonata No. 7 (K. 102)

Sonata No. 18 (K. 547)

Sonata No. 5 (K. 541)

Sonata No. 15 (K. 553)

Sonata No. 12 (K. 534)

Sonata No. 19 (K. 109)

Sonata No. 20 (K. 211)

Carl Czerny (1791-1857)

Sonata in the Style of Domenico Scarlatti, Op. 788

Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948)

Pastorale (Sonata K. 446)

Gigue (Sonata K. 523)

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)

Duettino, from Esquisses, Op. 63

Marc-André Hamelin (1961-)

Étude No. 6: Omaggio a Domenico Scarlatti

Jean Françaix (1912-1997)

Hommage à Domenico Scarlatti

Raymond Lewenthal (1923-1988)

Toccata alla Scarlatti

Michael Habermann (b.1950)

Homage to Scarlatti (Sonata K. 159)

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Sandro Russo’s Scarlatti Recreated, released Sep 24, 2013 on the Musical Concepts label, is an ambitious and fanciful undertaking in that the ‘reinvented’ repertoire is highly original. In fact, on the album there are four world-premiere recordings referring to the essential Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). A contemporary of Händel, Scarlatti’s baroque writing had been largely forgotten, gaining new popularity in the mid-twentieth century, as the liner notes of the recording suggest. In this recording, Russo deals with extraordinarily difficult material, solving their intricacies with his own, masterly understanding of the genre. He manages to adapt with a most elegant reverence to the different composers stylistic commentaries, without ever losing his own sensitive and personal touch.

Based in New York, Italian-born Sandro Russo has been lauded as an exceptionally poetic pianist with verve for the newfound joy of transcription. In 2005, he met Vladimir Leyetchkiss at the International Conference of the Rachmaninoff Society in London, whose transcription of Rachmaninov’s waltz and romance from his 2nd suite for two pianos Op. 17 caught Russo’s interest. Leyetchkiss approached Russo to play some of the movements of the 2nd suite transcription in recital. Leyetchkiss had originally intended this oeuvre for Cyprien Katsaris, who never ended up playing it; Russo premiered both the Waltz and Romance during the 2008/2009-concert season with great critical success and enthusiastic approval from Leyetchkiss.

About Scarlatti Recreated, Russo remarks, “The idea of ‘recreating’ Scarlatti originated primarily from the basic fact that his work wasn’t conceived for the modern piano but rather for the harpsichord.” Scarlatti’s most significant musical contribution is his oeuvre of 555 keyboard sonatas written for harpsichord, chronologically catalogued by the most comprehensive numbering system of his work, which was created by Ralph Kirkpatrick in 1953. With a strong sense for the historic component of pianism, Sandro Russo has enjoyed playing historic instruments and performing programs that position the pianistic experience into a solid historical context.

Obviously there was something in Scarlatti’s intimate and harmonious melodies that inspired a historic response, one which bears as much witness to the styles of the times in which the various transcriptions were written – virtuosic, romantic, and expressive – as it does to the subtleties of Scarlatti’s music itself.

An inherent ingredient in a transcription is its complexity. Based on the source material, the transcription evokes the original but often tries to go beyond it, adding a personal commentary. This often results in adding harmonic voices or melodic embellishments, translating into intricate technical demands on the pianist. Russo’s disc features transcriptions of Scarlatti’s material by pianists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Mid-nineteenth century transcriptionist Carl Czerny paid homage to Scarlatti along with other composers while he worked at the center of Viennese pianism. Piano virtuoso Carl Tausig and Louis Brassin, also best known for his Wagner transcriptions, added their own virtuosic flair to Scarlatti’s material, and included in their interpretations a fuller-ranged and polyphonic orchestral configuration of the original music. At the turn of the century, Enrique Granados set out to transcribe a set of Scarlatti Sonatas in a highly romanticized fashion of the time. Famed virtuoso and composer of the mid-twentieth century, Ignaz Friedman, was renowned for his Bach and Scarlatti transcriptions in addition to his Chopin performances; the Polish pianist brought a lot of Chopin’s harmonic influences into Scarlatti’s sound world. The compositions of the eccentric Charles-Valentin Alkan, a colleague of Chopin and part of the same French bohemian circle of the mid-nineteenth century, is known to test the limits of even the most virtuoso piano playing. He included references in one of his manuscripts to “Alla D. Scarlatti.” Slightly more interested in a historistic view of the twentieth century are Jean Françaix, Rayomond Leventhal, and Michael Habermann, each of whom approach Scarlatti with their personal historistic perspective.

Russo’s own revelations of fascinating details are projected with great sovereignty inScarlatti Recreated, perhaps most brilliantly expressed in his performance of Marc-André Hamelin’s EtudeVI: Esercizio per Pianoforte (Omaggio a Domenico Scarlatti). Marc-Andrè Hamelin is renowned for presenting the works of lesser-known composers (including Alkan’s), and works with pieces that many deem difficult to handle, remaining unfazed by their tremendous intricacies. The contemporary pianist/composer and arranger makes, in his own words, “a purely affectionate tribute” to Scarlatti, as mentioned in the liner notes.

Russo manages to keep the listener engaged throughout the different ‘quotations’ of Scarlatti’s underlying impact on the music’s clarity and finesse, which aids the listener in grasping a deeper look into the curious process of musical composition, as well.

The recording is a poignant example of Russo’s thoughtful and meaningful programs, executed with great imagination and musical dexterity.

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