Domenico Scarlatti - Sonaten - Egon Mihajlovic

Domenico Scarlatti: Sonaten

Egon Mihajlovic - harpsichord

Harpsichord after historical French models (Goermans-Taskin),
built by Michael Dollendorf, restored by Dr. Hans-Joachim Schugk.


Domenico Scarlatti attained fame already at an early age thanks to his highly virtuoso harpsichord playing. It was only after assuming a position at the Spanish court, however, that he became known as a composer. Scarlatti was active there as harpsichord teacher to the Spanish queen Maria Barbara until his death, and created a virtuoso oeuvre consisting of 555 harpsichord sonatas unfettered by the musical conventions of his Italian homeland.
The sonatas, whose tonal language and stylistic diversity reach far beyond the immediate period of the Baroque, number among the great solo works for the harpsichord. Egon Mihajlovich performs twenty-two particularly striking examples influenced by flamenco and other Spanish dance forms. The Slovenia-born harpsichordist plays Domenico Scarlatti’s tortuous sonatas full of wild trill passages and arpeggios on an instrument built after an original by Taskin.