Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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The astonishing technical variety and wide emotional range contained in Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas make each and every encounter a rewarding adventure in which the listener is seldom left untouched. This is Pierre Hantaï’s third solo disc of Scarlatti’s sonatas though only the second in his current series for the Mirare label. It contains several pieces less frequently performed than others and with which many readers may find themselves unfamiliar. The first item, in fact, is one of only seven sonatas of Scarlatti’s that is a straightforward fugue. It is an uncharacteristically didactic piece, even a shade austere compared to the rest of Hantaï’s recital which contains a kaleidoscope of colourful images. What Hantaï seems to be emphasising in his choice is that elusive, somewhat abstracted improvisatory quality present in so many of the pieces and of which the Sonata in E major K 215 provides a well-sustained example. Generally speaking, Hantaï follows Ralph Kirkpatrick’s suggestion that Scarlatti probably intended to group his sonatas into pairs or occasionally threes according to key. Hantaï’s playing is wonderfully responsive to the wealth of expressive nuance though, in the case of the beautiful F sharp minor Sonata, K 25, whose idiom recalls Couperin’s L’Epineuse in the same key, he sounds uncharacteristically matter-of-fact. That apart, this is playing of a very high order.

Review by Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine 5/5

Thank heaven Pierre Hantaï isn't contemplating recording all 555 of the Harpsichord Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti! While it is a wonderful thing to have all of a composer's oeuvre available, it is also a burden. After all, who has the time to listen to 555 sonatas, who has the time to discover which are the great works, which are the mediocre works, and which are the awful works? The answer, of course, is that very few people have that much time, and fewer still that much will power. For most listeners, it is imperative to have the performer decide which are the pieces worthy of recording and which are the pieces worth ignoring, because otherwise, Scarlatti's 555 sonatas will remain terra incognita.

In this, the second volume of his overview, Hantaï has chosen works that show Scarlatti to his best advantage. With a clean touch, a pure tone, a sure technique, and an open heart, Hantaï delivers brilliantly virtuosic, warmly humanistic, and deeply touching performances, performances that make the case for Scarlatti's best qualities as a composer. Although these are not "great" sonatas in the sense that Beethoven's sonatas are "great" sonatas – not, that is, heaven-storming, heartrending sonatas – in Hantaï's performances, they are delightfully entertaining and deliciously charming sonatas, which any music lover would be happy to know better. Mirare's sound is not too close, but still intimate; not too loud, but still immediate; and not too real, but still true.

Review by James Leonard, Allmusic.com

Pierre Hantaï’s second Scarlatti collection for Mirare offers interpretations that are thoroughly digested in the harpsichordist’s heart and mind, fastidiously executed, and gorgeously recorded. Although his virtuosity scintillates when necessary, Hantaï generally prefers to probe beneath the music’s attractive keyboard showpiece demeanor, forcing listeners to acknowledge its complex harmonic and rhythmic infrastructures and hotheaded undercurrents. In other words, Hantaï relates to the late Scott Ross in Scarlatti much as Arrau did to Rubinstein in Chopin Nocturnes, or Furtwängler to Toscanini in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Hantaï doesn’t just arpeggiate left-hand chords with expected stylish flair, but generates palpable tension by way of astute timing and articulation. K135 and K215 are good examples of this. While K25 works well as a jaunty, toccata-like audience pleaser, Hantaï’s more measured fluidity and subtle accentuations uncover an eloquent aria. In less musicianly and experienced hands Hantaï’s deviations from K261’s basic pulse would sound arbitrary or mannered. Here, however, they reinforce the inherent ferocity and sense of surprise in the slashing chords and repeated notes.

How Scarlatti stuffed so many excellent musical ideas within K263’s short space is a question for God, but notice how Hantaï manages to give each one a specific mood and color without creating even a hint of discontinuity, much as film director Robert Altman effortlessly shifts between multiple plot-lines in his epic films. K259 receives a particularly multi-leveled performance, with special attention paid to shaping the four-note phrases of measures 10 and 11 and similar places so that they sing over the bar lines. And in utter contrast to Vladimir Horowitz’s urbane, jewel-like piano interpretation of K260, Hantaï’s broken octaves foam at the mouth and dance in the street. It doesn’t hurt either that Hantaï has a beautiful-sounding instrument at his disposal (an Italian model made by Philippe Humeau à Barbaste in 2002). No Scarlatti lover can afford to miss this enriching release.

Review by Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com 10/10

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Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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Pierre Hantai - Domenico Scarlatti: Volume 2 (2005)

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