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Tokyo Kudan Minami: Domenico Scarlatti and Flamenco

Tokyo Kudan Minami Domenico Scarlatti e il Flamenco
Tokyo Kudan Minami Domenico Scarlatti e il Flamenco

On 12 September, the fifteenth event in the “Tokyo Kudan Minami Concerts” series presented a programme exploring the connection between the genius of composer Domenico Scarlatti and flamenco, one of the most representative musical genres of Gitano-Andalusian culture. The concert, organised in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes and stemming from a project by the Marco Fodella Foundation, offered a rare opportunity to hear the fusion of baroque music with the rhythms of Iberian folk tradition.

The concert featured Spanish harpsichordist Amaya Fernández Pozuelo, who performed a programme of Scarlatti’s music on a harpsichord built in 2008 by the Florentine master harpsichord maker Franco Barucchieri. This harpsichord, inspired by a model by the renowned Flemish luthier Ioannes Ruckers (1578-1642), was kindly provided by the Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy & Festival.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), born in Naples and trained in Rome, Venice, and later at the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, was a pioneer in integrating elements of Spanish folk music into classical composition. His famous harpsichord sonatas incorporate distinctive traits of flamenco, characterised by its incisive and rhythmic beat and expressive melody, free to move with spontaneity and depth. This fusion influenced many subsequent Iberian composers, including his pupil Padre Antonio Soler, Félix Máximo López, and Mateo Pérez de Albéniz.

 

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