A Composer and a Princess: Domenico Scarlatti and Maria Barbara

I am deeply immersed in re-discovering wonderful Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas for keyboard right now.

I am playing 5 sonatas at the moment - K.1, K.30 (Cat's Fugue), K.32, K.159 and K.208 - which I thoroughly enjoy studying and mastering. From fast to slow, from mastering their speed and execution of the ornaments, to mastering tone and expression, from playful and joyous, to poetic and lyrical, they have it all to keep me interested, emotionally engaged, and profoundly fulfilled.

What is very interesting about this baroque composer is that all of the 550 sonatas for keyboard that he composed (originally named 'Essercizi'), his most prominent work, have been inspired by and composed for one single person - Portuguese princess Maria Magdalena Barbara - at the very beginning his prodigiously talented pupil, who later on became Spanish queen and his patron and lifelong muse.

Domenico started to teach Maria when she was 9 years old in Lisbon, and having followed her to Spain, remained her mentor, composer and close friend until 1757, when he died, a year before Maria's own death.

All 550 keyboard sonatas have been composed to challenge and refine Maria's ever growing thirst for musical advancement and her undeniable and equally ever growing prowess on the harpsichord.

Domenico Scarlatti (26 October 1685 – 23 July 1757) remained Maria's sole teacher and mentor; their one-to-one focused very fruitful alliance quite unique and definitely the most productive in the history of music.

From the moment they met, they continued to inspire, learn from, challenge, and grow together, even though their relationship was not of the romantic kind.

That alliance and bilateral inspiration it brought about never ceased to flourish in its originality, going from strength to strength, and we could only stand in awe and feel immensely grateful for the impact of their unique relationship and the blessing of the highly sophisticated and refined music that it left behind for us to enjoy.

© Alternative Approach to Music: Inspiring - Healing - Empowering, Xenia Elizabeth Zilli

Listen to Maria João Pires' sublime interpretation of D. Scarlatti's Sonata K.208:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JwVCBFAVwA

Listen to Yevgeny Sudbin's elevated interpretation of D. Scarlatti's Sonata K.466: https://open.spotify.com/track/3vRAZ8MAPfwK7XdEJHRdBy?si=15fb6e0fa3ea4feb

Pictures: Wikipedia