Sonata alla Scarlatti

Germaine Tailleferre was the only woman in Les Six, the Parisian group around Cocteau and Satie that defined a generation of French neo-classicism. Sonata alla Scarlatti is exactly what the title says: a twentieth-century homage to Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, with their crisp two-hand textures, idiomatic Iberian colours and tightly-organised binary forms — but reframed in Tailleferre's bright, lightly-modal harmonic voice.

Technically the piece tests Scarlattian articulation in a modern frame: light, pearled finger-work, clean voice-leading between hands, and a confident sense of pulse that lets the dance feel propel the music. There are hand-crossings, repeated-note figures and small ornaments — all Scarlatti hallmarks — laid into Tailleferre's softer, French harmonic palette. The articulation is mostly non-legato with a few sustained moments.

Two pitfalls. First, students play it like a Mozart sonata — square, smoothed-out — when Scarlatti's idiom (and Tailleferre's reframing) wants light bounce, almost dance. Second, the modal colour notes are smoothed into ordinary major-key reading; let them glint.

Listening: PD recordings of Scarlatti sonatas are widely available (Musopen, IMSLP audio). Tailleferre's own works are still partially in copyright; the Scarlatti reference is the essential calibration.