Francesco Scarlatti 25.4.21

[ardcarp]

Who he? Well....

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and music of the lesser-known Scarlatti: Francesco – brother of Alessandro and uncle of Domenico, who spent much of his later career in Dublin.

[ardcarp]

Only just caught up with this...the day before the next edition. There was perhaps not too much background info on F. Scarlatti*, but the two performances were excellent. The large scale Mass (at times with 4X 4 parts singing) was inspiring, especially the sackbutts and cornetti, and was ably directed by Chris Monks. He was on In Tune a couple of weeks ago...and is a past organ scholar of Gonville & Caius. The Miserere Mei which followed was likewise superb, performed by the ensemble William Byrd. Francesco's musical language... though he is a near contemporary of Bach and Handel...seems to owe a lot to Gabrieli, with much use of block chords. But he could also do counterpoint, as in the 'et in sancto spiritu Amen' of the Miserere Mei.

*I really enjoyed a programme where the ratio of music:talk was high. Notwithsatnding Dublin, it was a Venetian experience, especially good through headphones.

Why is the EMS website so badly managed? This edition was hard to find. And the download version was just weird.

PPS I've just emailed EMS AGAIN about their woeful website. Isn't 'Sounds' meant to be the answer to everything?