Early Italian Keyboard Music: 49 Works by Frescobaldi, Scarlatti, Martini and Others (Dover Classical Piano Music)

I was curious about this particular selection of Early Italian keyboard composers. Although there is a faIr amount of variety, there are quite a few pieces by D. Scarlatti which are not too hard to find. It is arranged for piano so if you are playing the harpsichord, for me iit was not best. Also some of the selections were extracted from a larger context. It is not a historically correct edition. But the price and the number of pieces included made it not too bad of an investment.

I love this collection of early keyboard music and so far I’m enjoying the Zipoli suite the most. Fairly easy playing on harpsichord. Of course the editing in of dynamics are meaningless for harpsichord but the printing is clear and the lay flat sewn binding is helpful. A nice book for relaxing playing.

great job

Warning to those thinking of buying this book: the music is heavily edited according to late romantic sensibilities. The editor has added dynamic markings and crescendos as well as slurs. For those wishing to play these pieces on the harpischord or organ with the original articulation--the text is not clean, and it is not at all clear which markings are original and which are editorial. This is unfortunate, because many of the other Dover early music titles reporduce reliable editions (for instance, the Dover editions of Bach reproduce the reliable Bachgesellschaft Ed.).

This anthology is great, it gives a big handful of tunes from both the amazing D. Scarlatti and the great Frescobaldi, along with moderate portions of fellow neglected Italian composers and ends with a rare toccata by Clementi! If you dig on the music of Scarlatti and are interested in the unjustly neglected music of his peers then check this out. Now all we need is for Dover to publish an Early French Keyboard Music anthology, with Rameau, Couperin, Lully, Daquin, Dandrieu and the like. That would make my day. :)