Scarlatti, Domenico

Scarlatti, (Giuseppe) Domenico

Domenico Scarlatti, engraving.

(credit: Courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; photograph, J.P. Ziolo)

(born Oct. 26, 1685, Naples—died July 23, 1757, Madrid, Spain) Italian composer and keyboard player. Son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, he worked as his father's assistant in Naples. By 1705 he was living in Rome. His father subsequently sent him to Venice, where he stayed until about 1708. There he probably met George Frideric Handel and Antonio Vivaldi; he is said to have had a contest with Handel in which the German won at organ playing but Scarlatti won at the harpsichord. By 1723 he was tutor to the Spanish infanta (later crown princess) Maria Bárbara, in whose service he remained for much of his life. Though he wrote operas, oratorios, cantatas, and other works, his reputation rests on the 555 brilliant one-movement keyboard sonatas he wrote for the princess, one of the greatest bodies of work by any Baroque composer.