Music of three Scarlattis

Recordings that juxtapose music by Domenico Scarlatti and his father Alessandro are two a penny, but the first CD reviewed here, Alessandro, Francesco e Domenico: Polyphonic Music of the Scarlatti Family (Et'cetera ktc 1298, rec 2005, 67 ′), goes a stage further by adding to the mixture a very substantial work, a setting in G minor of the Miserere in 12 movements for soloists, five-part choir and orchestra by Alessandro's younger brother Francesco (1666–1741 or later), who emigrated permanently to the British Isles in 1719. This is only the second recording of the Miserere (the first was on Deux-Elles in 2003), but it can lay claim to be the first complete recording of the work, since its predecessor surreptitiously cut the seventh movement, ‘Redde mihi laetitiam’, in order not to overstep the 80-minute CD limit. Francesco does not quite have the melodic elegance or facility with musical form of either Alessandro or Domenico, but his more intensively worked contrapuntal movements run them close. The Belgian chamber choir Ex Tempore also includes Domenico Scarlatti's Missa quatuor vocum in G minor, a rather austere but strangely beautiful a cappella work preserved in mid-century Spanish manuscripts that possibly date from the time (1713–19) when the composer was initially vice-maestro, then full maestro, of the Cappella Giulia at the Vatican, and his similarly scored Magnificat in D minor, which certainly belongs to that period. Representing Alessandro is a magnificent instrumentally accompanied choral setting of the Salve regina in D minor from his collection of sacred vocal works published in 1702 as opus 2.