Scarlatti Musica Ricercata Analysis

1. D. Scarlatti (1685 – 1757) Sonata in G Minor K.426 Sonata in G Major K.427

The Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti, son of equally renowned composer Allesandro, wrote 555 sonatas for keyboard (mostly for harpsichord or fortepiano) during his lifetime. The letter K. before the number of the work stands for Ralph Kirkpatrick who produced a chronological edition of the sonatas in 1953.

All of Scarlatti’s sonatas are single movement works, mostly in binary form, and these two sonatas are no exception. Many of the sonatas are also believed to have been envisioned in ‘pairs’ that are suitable to be performed together due to the fact that they contrast and complement each other with regard to tonality, tempo, dynamics and complexity. Sonatas K. 426 and K. 427 are good examples of this: The contrast between a relatively slow-paced and lyrical sonata in G Minor and a

György Ligeti (1923 – 2006) Musica ricercata

György Ligeti has been described as one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century and one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time. Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in Hungary before emigrating and becoming an Austrian citizen in 1968.

Ligeti's earliest works have been called an extension of the musical language of Béla Bartók by some, and his piano cycle Musica ricercata (completed in 1953) most certainly falls into this category. It has been described by one biographer as inhabiting a world very close to Bartók's set of piano works, Mikrokosmos. Ligeti's set comprises eleven pieces in all. The work is based on a simple restriction: the first piece uses exclusively one pitch A, heard in multiple octaves and rhythms, and only at the very end of the piece is a second note, D, heard. The second piece then uses three notes (E♯, F♯, and G), the third piece uses four, and so on, so that in the final piece all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are