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Domenico Scarlatti (1685 – 1757):
SONATA IN G MINOR (K30/L499) – “CAT FUGUE”
Scarlatti completed his collection “30 Essercizi” (published in 1738) with this impressive piece – I’m sure he was very proud of it! Being a fugue it is actually not typical of his sonatas. Legend has it that Scarlatti had a pet cat called “Pulcinella”, who was described by the composer as prone to walking across the keyboard, always curious about its sounds. On one occasion, according to the story, Scarlatti wrote down a phrase from one of these “improvisation sessions”, and used it as a lead motif in this fugue. Early in the 19th century, it was nicknamed “Cat fugue”.
You should also check out this video with a great piece for 2 pianos, based on Scarlatti’s theme, and with a graphical score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyYhfDkIrDM
This is the original on cembalo with a graphical score:
The catwalk is in red 😀
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Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. His music was influential in the development of the Classical style and he was one of the few Baroque composers to transition into the classical period. Like his renowned father Alessandro Scarlatti, he composed in a variety of musical forms, although today he is known mainly for his 555 keyboard sonatas.
Only a small fraction of Scarlatti’s compositions were published during his lifetime; Scarlatti himself seems to have overseen the publication in 1738 of the most famous collection, his 30 Essercizi (“Exercises”). These were well received throughout Europe, and were championed by the foremost English writer on music of the eighteenth century, Charles Burney. Ralph Kirkpatrick numbered these sonatas K1 – K30.
The many sonatas that were unpublished during Scarlatti’s lifetime have appeared in print irregularly in the two and a half centuries since. Scarlatti has attracted notable admirers, including Béla Bartók, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Pieter-Jan Belder, Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, Emil Gilels, Enrique Granados, Marc-André Hamelin, Vladimir Horowitz, Franz Liszt, Ivo Pogorelich, Scott Ross, Heinrich Schenker, András Schiff, and Dmitri Shostakovich.
Racha Arodaky (2005)
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