Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was born in Italy on 26 October 1685, son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and trained in the Baroque idiom that his father had mastered. He wrote in many forms early on, but the bulk of his working life unfolded far from Italy: he served the Portuguese and Spanish royal families, spending decades in their courts. There he composed his 555 keyboard sonatas, compact pieces that bent the harpsichord into new shapes and seeded ideas the Classical era would later harvest. He died on 23 July 1757, his music filed away in royal libraries, its full influence not felt until long after.