Before closing this short chapter we will add a word or two about Italian music for the harpsichord at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A recent writer remarks that "Domenico Scarlatti seems to spring full-armed into the view of history." But his father, the renowned opera-writer, Alessandro Scarlatti, wrote music for the harpsichord, also his pupil, Gaetano Grieco, who succeeded him as Professor at the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesu Cristo (Naples) in 1717. The influence of the master can be clearly traced in the music of the pupil; and, if one may judge from the simpler character of Grieco's music[55] as compared with that of D. Scarlatti, he, too, was a predecessor. Grieco is said to have been born about 1680; D. Scarlatti was born in 1683; but this, of course, decides nothing as to the dates of their compositions. The harpsichord music of G. Grieco has both character and charm, and it is indeed strange that none of his pieces have been included either in the _Tresor des Pianistes_, the _Maitres du Clavecin_, or Pauer's Collections of old music. This chapter is headed: "A Contemporary of Kuhnau." The latter published all his known sonatas by the year 1700, while the dates assigned to the Pasquini sonata volume are, as we have seen, 1703-4. But at that time Pasquini was over sixty years of age; it is therefore more than probable that he was really the predecessor of the German master as a writer of clavier sonatas. CHAPTER IV EMANUEL BACH AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES