*** 2x 180g Vinyl LPs ***

A luxury-grade vinyl transfer in a gatefold 2-LP set for a beautifully engineered 2021 album of Scarlatti on the piano from a master German pianist.

On its CD release in 2022, this personal choice from Scarlatti’s 555 keyboard sonatas won an enthusiastic welcome from Gramophone. ‘Contrasts of mood together with unified relationships of tempo and key signature characterise one the most intelligently programmed and distinctively played Scarlatti collections to cross my reviewer’s desk in years.’

Hardly less than Bach, these sonatas have become for many pianists a proving ground for their own technique and imagination, rewarding an improvisatory response to their flamboyant effects. Schmitt-Leonardy also features several of Scarlatti’s most poetic and reflective sonatas such as the ‘Aria’, K29, and the melancholy soliloquy of K208.

The approach taken by Schmitt-Leonardy is always ‘pianistic’, in that he exploits the full tonal resources of a modern concert grand. Yet his phrasing is also sensitive to 18th-century style and to the kind of effects and articulation particular to the harpsichord for which Scarlatti was writing. ‘Kaleidoscopic nuances and dynamic gradations abound throughout the E major Kk135,’ continued the Gramophone reviewer Jed Distler, ‘but not garishly so. Nor does the pianist’s curvaceous and tapered phrasing throughout the A major, Kk322, lapse into mannerism or cliché.’

As with all Brilliant Classics LPs, this set is issued on 180-gram, high-grade vinyl pressed at the Optimal factory in Hamburg. Its audiophile quality is worthy of performances which bear comparison with great Scarlatti performers of past and present from Horowitz to Pletnev. Innersleeve booklet notes by Peter Quantrill discuss each of the sonatas in turn.

German pianist Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy is one of the leading pianists of his generation. His concert activities and CD recordings mark him as an extremely intelligent musician with the heart in the right place, his immense technical powers almost being taken for granted. His CDs of Brahms, Schumann and Rachmaninov have won him 5-star reviews all over the world: ‘astonishing and exquisite listening’ (Fono Forum), ‘Electrifying passion and clarity’ (Piano News), ‘dazzling brilliance and interpretative sophistication’ (American Record Guide), ‘Coup de Coeur’ (Piano Magazine), ‘In his recording of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy achieves a fusion of impassioned ardor and classical textual rigor..a stimulating and compelling listening journey, 9/9’ (Jed Distler on Classicstoday.com).