Keyboard Sonata in D Minor

This well-known Sonata in D Minor was one of relatively few published in Scarlatti’s lifetime and appeared in his pioneering volume, Essercizi per gravicembalo, printed in London in 1738/39. Describing these pieces as mere “Exercises” was rather modest, since their sheer verve and imagination literally jumped off the page. Indeed, within a year or two, the volume had sparked a Scarlatti craze in England. This D Minor Sonata K9 was an early favourite, full of Scarlatti’s trademark fingerprints: spectacular leaps, piquant chords, sudden flashes of virtuosity, and sequences of pithy ideas rubbing shoulder to shoulder. It caught the eye of the Newcastle composer Charles Avison, who in 1744 included it in the 10th of his 12 concertos arranged from the best of Scarlatti’s sonatas. In his hands it became a faster Italianate “Giga,” but Avison obviously disapproved of its spicy harmonies, which he tames, while also cutting out many of Scarlatti’s wittily repeated phrases.