Two books of toccatas by Alessandro Scarlatti give that facile composer the right to be numbered among the great pioneers in the history of harpsichord music. These toccatas are in distinct movements, usually in the same key, but sharply contrasted in content. The seventh is a theme and variations, in which Scarlatti shows an appreciation of tonal effects and an inventiveness which are astonishingly in advance of the time. He foreshadows unmistakably the brilliant style of his son Domenico; indeed, he accounts in part for what has seemed the marvellous instinct of Domenico. If, as is most natural, Domenico approached the mysteries of the harpsichord through his father, he began his career with advantages denied to all others contemporary with him, save those who, like Grieco, received that father’s training. Alessandro Scarlatti was one of the most greatly endowed of all musicians. The trend of the Italian opera during the eighteenth century toward utter senselessness has been often laid partly to his influence; but in the history of harpsichord music that influence makes a brilliant showing in the work of his son, who contributed perhaps more than any other one man to the technique of writing not only for harpsichord but for pianoforte. Little of the harpsichord and clavichord music of the seventeenth century is heard today. It has in the main only an historical interest. The student who looks into it will be amazed at some of its beauties; but as a whole it lacks the variety and emotional strength which claim a general attention. Nevertheless it is owing to the labor and talent of the composers of these years that the splendid masterpieces of a succeeding era were possible. They helped establish the harmonic foundation of music; they molded the fugue, the prelude, the toccata, and the suite; they developed a general keyboard style. After the middle of the century such men as Froberger and Kuhnau in Germany, Chambonnières, d’Anglebert, and Louis and François Couperin in France, and Alessandro Scarlatti in Italy, finally gave to harpsichord music a special style of its own, and to the instrument an independent and brilliant place among the solo instruments of that day. Out of all the confusion and uncertainty attendant upon the breaking up of the old art of vocal polyphony, the enthusiasm of the new opera, the creation of a new harmonic system, the rise of an instrumental music independent of words, these men slowly and steadily secured for the harpsichord a kingdom peculiarly its own. FOOTNOTES: