Over a series of discs that now numbers three, harpsichordist
Pierre Hantaï has attempted a rather radical rehearing of
Domenico Scarlatti's harpsichord pieces, replacing the speedy, sparkling sound most of us are used to with something both more extreme and more inward. In a dense but stimulating interview included in the booklet,
Hantaï says that
Scarlatti falls on the painterly side of conductor
Nikolaus Harnoncourt's distinction between Baroque "music that speaks" and early Classical "music that paints." Thus his music looks behind the rapid runs and arpeggios of
Scarlatti's sonatas, emphasizing the unusual textures and harmonies to be found there.
Hantaï's approach works best on the slower pieces, where his flexible tempos, which paradoxically look back to the expressively freer seventeenth century, create an almost
Chopin-like feel. In the virtuoso showpiece sonatas,
Hantaï goes for textural shocks like what can only be described as sforzando chords in the Sonata in F major, K. 525, track 9. His approach is consistently surprising but is unified and well thought-out; he has a whole little repertoire of timing tricks that he uses to bring out small details, and few of them sound forced or mannered. This is definitely unusual
Scarlatti, but
Hantaï's performances stand up to repeated hearings and demand at least one from
Scarlatti lovers and keyboardists in general.