Re: GG: Scarlatti

[Jeremy Smith <jcs@grove.ufl.EDU>]

Alun,

It may be in your letter (and I apologize if it is), but after two
readings I cannot find it. *Who* is playing the Sonatas?????


On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Alun Severn wrote:

> 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
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Solitude is the prerequisite for ecstatic experience..."
>                                                       - Glenn Gould
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
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