Una nuova serenata di Domenico Scarlatti
Abstract
A new serenata by Domenico Scarlatti, Clori e Fileno, was recently discovered in a manuscript kept in US-AAu (unfortunately not complete). Composed in Rome in 1712 for an unknown occasion, it is for two voices (S, A), two violins and continuo. The author describes the manuscript, analyses the poetic text of the serenata, by an unknown poet, and its music, furnishing a transcription of a duet and of an aria. The new serenata shows a high originality and an idiosyncratic style that recalls that typical research of whimsical solutions, that sense of irony and of humor, that clearness and concision of compositional structure peculiar to the Sonatas for harpsichord by Scarlatti. The number of serenatas surely composed by Scarlatti for Rome (9) and for Lisbon (11) is very high and probably higher than we can assume from the known sources. The time is come for seriously evaluating the importance of these and other vocal compositions (sacred and secular) by Scarlatti and the influence they had in his global artistic development in Italy, Portugal and Spain.
