Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
Alessandro was a great composer of vocal music – operas, cantatas, oratorios and motets.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
But “Scarlatti” usually refers to Alessandro’s son. Domenico represented a different style to the baroque polyphony of Bach and Handel. Indeed, he sounds ahead of his time as a kind of Spanish Mozart (he was originally from Napoli but lived the last portion of his life in Madrid). He is most well-known for his 550 single movement “sonatas”, written at the time for harpsichord but which sound wonderful on the piano too.
Admired by Chopin, championed by Horowitz, there is everything here from introspective and nostalgic pieces (my favourite, K87 in B minor, or the similar C# minor K247), fugal pieces, and crazily fun and fast ones like K141, with its repeated notes evoking (or perhaps looking forward to?) Spanish guitar. My other favourites are K531/L430 and K430/L463.
He also wrote some extraordinary, archaic sounding choral works – “Stabat Mater”, “Salve Regina” and “Te Deum Laudamus”.
He met Handel in Rome for a keyboard contest, and reportedly won the harpsichord while Handel won the organ.