Fou Ts'ong - Domenico Scarlatti: Piano Sonatas (1992) CD-Rip

Domenico Scarlatti is a great composer disguised as a mediocre one. Part of the disguise is that he’s a formulaic miniaturist. It’s easy to dismiss his sonatas with the airy notion that if you’ve heard a few of them, you’ve heard them all. So pianists usually dispatch them as twee appetizers, played with a wink and a smirk, setting the table for meatier fare. But such dismissal dissolves under the sheer inventiveness of the sonatas. Like the protagonist in Ilse Aichinger’s “The Bound Man,” Scarlatti finds endless possibilities within his self-imposed confines.

Although it’s an oversimplification to say so, pianists tend toward three approaches to Scarlatti. There’s the “piano as harpsichord” approach, exemplified by Glenn Gould and Ivo Pogorelić. Then there’s “screw the harpsichord, I’m a pianist” embodied by Mikhail Pletnev and Yevgeny Sudbin. Finally, there’s a more elusive approach that downplays the instrument itself and contemplates the music qua music—two pianists who took this path were Marcelle Meyer and, counter-intuitively, Vladimir Horowitz.

Into the last category add Syrian born Racha Arodaky. Although relatively young (she was 30 when this recording was first released), she finds much to say in Scarlatti. Many of the most often performed sonatas are here. But Arodaky’s playing digs deep, showing old friends in a new light. Her instincts are intensely lyrical. In this, she runs the risk of ennui, but her playing is so fraught with intriguing detail that boredom isn’t an issue. It helps that she never dithers pointlessly. Even in slower tempos there’s an inevitable momentum that carries forward the narrative.

That’s not to say Arodaky can’t fly. She shrewdly dots her program with fleeter fare, and does so with a muscular aplomb that seems to say “yes, I can do that too.” While I wouldn’t class her above Pletnev or Sudbin as a pianist, she certainly holds her own. There’s always a roundness and warmth to her sound, regardless of the tempo. Indeed, more than most pianists, she avoids the brittleness that often afflicts Scarlatti on the piano. Purists who wave garlic at pianists using pedal in Scarlatti may find Arodaky blasphemous. Then again, their cavils might melt away at hearing her supple touch. Even when she does staccato, it’s always with a tasteful fluidity. It’s a reminder that Wanda Landowska’s dictum: “my staccato is always legato” can, in the right hands, ring true.

While previously unknown to me, Arodaky vaults to the top in my pantheon of Scarlatti players. It’s easy to overlook her. But what a mistake that would be. In its frantic search for the next big thing, the music industry often ignores a rare gem right under its nose. Racha Arodaky’s Scarlatti is one such gem. Treat yourself.