Scarlatti: Lettere amorose

Mostly remembered for his monumental collection of keyboard sonatas, Domenico Scarlatti also composed less well-known secular solo cantatas, hidden gems of the late baroque vocal music. The program of Lettere amoroso includes three of them, which relate a correspondence between disappointed lovers. Passion, jealousy, despair… all the torments of love are admirably rendered in Scarlatti’s music and performance by baroque specialists Patrizia Ciofi and Anna Bonitatibus.

Both are also associated in beautiful duets from Scarlatti’s opera, while nine harpsichord sonatas played by Alan Curtis are interspersed with the vocal pieces.