=Method of Playing the Clavier=.—The method of playing the clavier used by these old masters was peculiar. In a work on the subject published by Di Ruta, about the year 1600, the rules given include holding the fingers out _flat_ on the keys, and scarcely using the thumb at all, allowing it to hang below the level of the keyboard. The scales were played each with _two_ fingers, according to fixed rules; so that smoothness combined with rapidity seems to have been made impossible. =The Sonata and Overture=.—Starting with the harmonic form of the old dance tunes, composers now began to elaborate this to a form capable of expressing more serious ideas, by giving more definiteness to the musical subject treated, and by introducing material derived from the old vocal forms. =Corelli=, the violinist (1653-1713), and the violinists of his school, restricted the name Sonata to combinations of such movements, in distinction from the lighter forms of the Suite; and the celebrated opera composer, =Alessandro Scarlatti= (1659-1725), applied similar methods to the composition of his operatic overtures, writing them in three parts: first, a moderately fast movement, which was followed by a slow movement, the whole closing with a movement in quick tempo. =Domenico Scarlatti=.—Clavier music lagged somewhat behind violin music, owing to the greater perfection of the violin as an instrument, and also to the popularity of the lute, which was much affected in fashionable circles. Finally, however, a man appeared who possessed the genius to develop the peculiar resources of the harpsichord to a remarkable extent. This was =Domenico Scarlatti=, the son and pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti. The latter was himself a skilful clavier player and composer; but his son attained a proficiency so far eclipsing that of any of his predecessors as to place him entirely without the pale of comparison with any of them. Domenico Scarlatti, who was born at Naples in 1683, two years before Handel and Bach, first attracted attention when about twenty-one years old, as an opera composer; but achieved his greatest successes as a virtuoso on the harpsichord, winning a world-wide reputation for his wonderful playing, which was a revelation of what could be done with this hitherto undeveloped instrument. In one of Handel’s Italian journeys a contest of skill was instituted between these two musical giants; and the result was a drawn battle so far as the harpsichord was concerned, although Handel triumphed at the organ. Scarlatti traveled about somewhat, spending most of his later life in the position of court music master at Madrid. He finally returned to his birthplace, where he died in 1757.