Next Steps in Scarlatti Research

Presentation originally given on Monday, February 27th, 2023 at 5PM GMT as part of ResearchWorks by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, recording available at: https://youtu.be/0eY_2Jckj74

Scarlatti is one of the most important - and enduringly popular - composers of the eighteenth century and one of the least well understood. The main reason for his marginal status in music history is the almost complete absence of information about his life and career, especially the nearly 40 years he spent in Portugal and Spain. All the more reason to make better use of the huge evidence base that does survive: the 3000 or so eighteenth-century manuscript and printed copies of his keyboard sonatas. This paper reports on the first comprehensive study of this daunting resource.

Speaker: Professor Sir Barry Ife

Professor Sir Barry Ife is a cultural historian who specialises in early-modern and modern Spain. He is currently Research Professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he was Principal from 2004 to 2017. Between 1988 and 2004 he held the Cervantes Chair of Spanish at King’s College London.

Speaker: Dr Jérémie Lumbroso

Dr Jérémie Lumbroso is a computer science faculty at Princeton University. He gained his doctorate in 2013 from Sorbonne Université (previously the Université Pierre et Marie Curie) in Paris. His research interests are in probabilistic algorithms, data streaming, data structures, analysis of algorithms, and analytic combinatorics. And, of course, the music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Additionally, Jasper van der Klis (Guildhall School of Music and Drama) and Luisa Morales (Universitat de Lleida and FIMTE) are co-presenting.

What is ResearchWorks?

The Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the school and its guests with students, staff and the public.