"Händel vs Scarlatti" by Cristiano Gaudio, release date 5 November 2021

For his debut album, harpsichordist Cristiano Gaudio performs music from the famous duel between two young composers - both aged just twenty-four - that took place in Rome in 1709: Georg Frederic Händel and Domenico Scarlatti. It is a fascinating moment in the history of music, though we have only a fairly vague idea of what actually happened, as reality has got rather mixed up with legend.

The program of the recording is an attempt to reconstruct what the two composers might have played on that special occasion, including Sonatas by Scarlatti attributable to his early period (K 32, 33, 43, 53, 64...), combined with early works of Italian inspiration by Händel: the well-known Chaconne in G major HWV 435, excerpts from the little-known Bergamo Manuscript and the Suite in F major HWV 427. Such a selection requires lots of interpretative freshness, fantasy, improvisation and ornamentation at the harpsichord. Quite a challenge for the Italian harpsichordist, who was also twenty-four at the time of the recording.

Sponsored by Safran (Fondation pour la musique)

Special thanks to Piccola Accademia di Montisi, Bruce Kennedy

Video production, Julian Levendusky

Recording producer, Ken Yoshida

Harpsichord after M. Mietke (1702-1704) by Bruce Kennedy, 1998

Film location: Borgo la Grancia

Special thanks to Marco Bisazza

Buy the album "Händel VS Scarlatti": [ Ссылка ]

L'Encelade
► Website: [ Ссылка ]

свернуть