Keyboard Sonata in C Major

This is one of a small but distinguished group of sonatas which, early on in the Scarlatti revival, seized the imaginations of players and audiences because of the striking originality and sheer memorability of Scarlatti’s melodic imagination. He thinks in small units, with contrasting ideas literally butted end to end, and as we listen to their collisions and asymmetry here, they seem to inhabit a more colorful and relaxed world than the well-behaved suites of Bach and Handel. The Sonata in C Major was rapidly given the nickname “La Caccia”—“The Hunt”—because of the horn-like calls with which it begins. Scarlatti writes these in a simple two-part texture to contrast with the richer motifs which follow. He brings back this horn-call in the second half of the piece, as if triumphantly proclaiming the success of the hunt. Whether Scarlatti really intended the galloping figuration and fast ornaments to represent horses and dogs barking seems unlikely—though the idea is very successful in the theater of the imagination.