GG: Scarlatti

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

Dear All,

I have just joined a CD Club and was intrigued to see this selection of 31
Scarlatti sonatas receiving the following rave review:

        "Every so often a major pianist reclaims Scarlatti for
        the piano with an outstanding recording and this is certainly
        such an occasion. There are dances and fiestas and processions
        here, serenades and laments, and evocations of everything
        from the rudest folk music to courtly entertainments and
        churchly polyphony; and as the kaleidoscope turns you marvel
        at the composer who could embrace such diversity and shape
        it and put it all on the keyboard.....This is one of the
        best piano recordings available."

                        - The Good CD Guide
                        - 1996 Gramaphone Award Winner

Anyhow, eager to try and bost my spirits with a spot of retail therapy, I
hurtled around to find this. It's on the Virgin label; my club catalog
priced it at L28.99. Virgin's store -- where one might have expected to
find Virgin product -- confessed not to sell it but could order it at
L29.99. A burst of speed found me in (the previously maligned) Tower
Records. They not only had it in stock and played me sample tracks; they
had it for L18.99. I almost tore their arms off in the process of handing
over my money.

It's a truly wonderful collection -- fierier and infinitely more stylish, I
have to tell you, than the Naxos collection. Superb booklet; superb
playing; superb packaging. I was one happy bunny. This is how GG might have
played Scarlatti had he actually liked him (I think).

Such diversity. Such style, panache.

Best,  Alun

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ALUN SEVERN        *  Snailmail              1 Chestnut Rd  Oldbury
                                        W.Midlands  B68 0AX England
                   *  Tel                      + 44 (0)121 422 9509
                   *  Fax                      + 44 (0)121 643 0661
                   *  Email                  alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk
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"Solitude is the prerequisite for ecstatic experience..."
                                                      - Glenn Gould
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