SCARLATTI, Domenico 1685-1757

Libro de VI Sonatas Modernas para Clavicordio Compuestas por El Señor D. Domingo Scarlati[!] Caballero del Orden de Santiago y Maestro de Los Reyes Catholicos d. Fernando El VI y Doña Maria Barbara Libro VI. Price 7-6.

London: John Welcker, No. 9 in the Hay Market Opposite the Opera House, [ca. 1775-77].

Oblong folio. Half mid-tan calf with marbled boards. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [1] (blank), 2-23, [i] (blank) pp. Engraved throughout.

With 4-line publisher's catalogue below imprint advertising works by Kammel, Paisable, Kotswarra[!Kotzwara], Meyer, Quelicis, Giordani, etc.

Contains sonatas K125, 179, 182, 131, 126, and 127.

A presentation copy from the publisher to noted organist, composer, and admirer of Scarlatti's works, Dr. John Worgan, with "Mr. Welcker begs Do. Worgans Acceptance" in contemporary manuscript to head of title.

Provenance
The collection of noted conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist, Christopher Hogwood (1941-2014), with pencilled note to front pastedown: "Ex Coll. Ch. Hogwood;" The Rowe Music Library, King's College, Cambridge, with their bookplate and "cancelled" handstamp to front pastedown and their small circular handstamp to verso of title, blank upper outer margin of page 2, and outer lower corner of page 23.

Slightly worn and browned, especially at edges; very small blue ink stains to extreme outer margins. In very good condition overall; very slightly trimmed at upper margin, just touching several letters of inscription.

Second edition. Kirkpatrick 16. BUC p. 925 (dating this edition at ca. 1775). Hoboken Vol. 16, no. 266. RISM A/I/7 S1209 (one copy only in the U.S.).

Kirkpatrick p. 409 describes the Welcker edition as a reprint of an undated edition published in London by Johnson. The Johnson edition is recorded in one copy only, held at the Royal Conservatoire in Belgium (Wotquenne IV, p. 278); this same copy is cited in RISM A/I/7 S1208. It has recently been determined, however, that this is an error and that what was formerly referred to as the Johnson edition was, in fact, published by Welcker.

As no copies are recorded on the Jisc database as being held in British libraries, we suspect that the "Johnson" edition is, in all likelihood, actually the Welcker edition with a Johnson overpaste.

These sonatas were first published by Haffner in Nuremberg in ca. 1753. Kirkpatrick 13.

"Any discussion of Domenico Scarlatti’s instrumental output must focus on his keyboard sonatas: not only because of the pre-eminence of the Essercizi and sonatas in his work but because even in their most developed form these pieces relate to a single stylistic model, identified by Ralph Kirkpatrick as the basso continuo. The practice of improvising an accompaniment on a bass line was the stock-in-trade of every professional musician; in the case of Scarlatti, a keyboard player of astounding virtuosity and immense creativity, the habit of condensing, of translating contrapuntal implications into harmonic structures, meant that routine formulas were gradually left behind." Roberto Pagano in Grove Music Online

Worgan (1724-1790) is said to have owned one of four contemporary manuscripts of Scarlatti's works.

"Following on Roseingrave's original publications and their reprints were Charles Avison's transcriptions for string orchestra and twelve sonatas issued by Dr. John Worgan in 1752 from the Spanish manuscript that had once belonged to Sebastian Albero, organist of the Royal Chapel in Madrid. In his youth Dr. Worgan 'was impressed with a reverence for Domenico Scarlatti by old Roseingrave's account of his wonderful performance on the harpsichord, as well as by his lessons, and afterwards he became a great collector of his pieces, some of which he had been honoured with from Madrid by the author himself. He was the editor of twelve at one time and six at another ..." Kirkpatrick: Domenico Scarlatti, p. 124.

We would like to thank Dr. Johan Eeckeloo of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel for his kind assistance in confirming that the Conservatorium's copy of this work, formerly identified as having been published by Johnson, is an error.

Item #39437

Price: $3,800.00  other currencies