This first lesson of three by Martha Masters will cover Scarlatti’s Sonata K213, one of his longer and more thought-provoking works. For this video, she’ll share some thoughts about transcriptions, and general stylistic approaches that work for the whole piece. Her purpose is to share ideas for you think about, rather than give a tutorial for how to play the piece “her way”. She encourages you to know the piece just as well as you know the “terrain of your local neighborhood” and decide for yourself how to navigate it successfully. This piece lies nearly perfectly on the guitar, with only a few octave displacements needed. However, it’s important to be aware of a few traps and pitfalls that guitarists run into.

For her final video on Scarlatti K 213, Martha Masters leads a guided tour of the entire sonata, highlighting the development of one motif into the next. Throughout, she shares her own observations in hopes of calling to attention pivotal elements – dynamics, tempo, and balancing of voices are among the most frequent. It’s important to consider how frequently a motif appears, and to treat appropriately the ones that happen less frequently. Harmonic movements in this piece can also dictate interpretation if Scarlatti does something unexpected. To round out this collection, Martha shows some powerful closing thoughts, centered around the theme that it really is up to you to intelligently and resourcefully craft your own unique interpretation of this sonata.

In the second of three videos on Scarlatti K 213 taught by Martha Masters, she looks at a few challenging stylistic features of the sonata. First, she addresses the uncertain nature of ornaments, and how Scarlatti actually makes his intent quite clear in this sonata. Second, she discusses dynamics and the importance of practicing varying levels of extremes. While some players tend towards using intensity and awe, others gravitate towards more consistency and an “up the middle” approach. While Martha lays out a fairly elaborate way to organize the motifs, there are no wrong or right ways to analyze this material. She encourages you to study the material yourself and find an interpretation that best communicates the strengths of your instrument and style of playing. By the end of the lesson you’ll have Martha’s detailed opinions to learn from as you design your own performance of Scarlatti’s K213.