Mario Martinoli - The Well-Tempered Scarlatti (2015)

Wendy Carlos, Gustav Leonhardt and Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli are the three great musicians that built my vision of Domenico Scarlatti when I was a child. Three very different artistic and technical approaches helped me to discover the richness of Scarlatti’s musical palette and built my love for his music.

The first Scarlatti I ever encountered was Wendy Carlos' synthesizer orchestration of a number of Scarlatti sonatas. My father was also exploring synthesizer music in the early 70's (I still have the original Moog Satellite Synthesizer 1050 he used to produce his own orchestrations of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier) and I was fascinated by this sound and this music. I was 8 years-old in 1973 and not yet playing any instrument when I literally fell in love with Carlos’ album The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, a stunning 45-minute LP including visionary elaborations of Monteverdi, Handel, Bach and Scarlatti masterpieces. Pure magic. I owe a lot to this recording. Curiously enough, my interest in early music began with these recordings, though they belong to a completely different musical universe. The title of the present CD is an explicit reference and homage to Wendy Carlos, with profound gratitude to her for having contributed to the formation of my present musical life.