Minuetto (Scarlatti, Sonata in A 2nd Movement, Kp.83)

Playing Harpsichord Music on the Piano

This piece of music was originally written for the harpsichord, as you might expect. It dates from the first half of the Eighteenth Century. The mechanism of the harpsichord is different to that of the piano – it plucks the strings, so the attack is always the same, and the sounds sustain for a lot less time than a modern piano. To give some interest to the music, the harpsichord player could thicken the tone by coupling up the strings an octave higher or lower. On a larger instrument with two keyboards (known as manuals), the player could play quietly on the upper manual, and loudly on the lower one. Contrasts of piano and forte would be possible, but not crescendo or diminuendo.

Apart from that, the harpsichordist could vary the articulation, though a perfectly joined-up legato is not possible because the attack produced by plucking each string stops that from happening.

On the piano, it is natural to play crescendo and diminuendo, and it makes some musical sense to do that. If you want to keep as close as possible to the way it might have been played on the harpsichord, then you will stick to the contrasts between piano and forte. Even so, it was generally left to the player to make decisions about that, as well as about much of the articulation.

In the ABRSM edition for the Grade 4 exam, some sensible decisions have been made by the editor about these things, though we might add some more articulation. More of that later.

Some Decisions …

The first thing to decide is how fast it should go. The minuet is not a fast dance, but this one was never meant to be danced to. It is simply for players to use for their own pleasure, and the way it is written seems to suggest a quite fast pace for the quavers.

It seems to make sense to feel the quaver beats rather than the dotted crotchet beat. If you set a speed at which you can count the three beats, but almost feel like counting one-in-a-bar, you probably have the speed about right, although I think it will stand being played a bit slower than that. I would suggest 120 quaver beats per minute.

The second thing is to decide how much more articulation might be needed above what is already provided by the editor. The main thing to notice is that the articulation is all small-scale, bar for bar. We’ll discuss this as we go through the piece.

Playing the Piece

Getting the articulation right helps you to get your fingers in the right places. If you were to try to play this all legato, you’d soon be in trouble with it!

The articulation in bars 1 and 2 , slurring the first note to the second, propels the music forward. Lean on the first of the slurred notes, and lighten the second, and you will hear that effect. The A and the E on the second and third beats need to be nicely detached – you could well write staccato dots on them, but they shouldn’t be played too short. Single quavers in the left hand should also be nicely detached. The semiquavers in the right hand in bar 3 could be played non legato, but it is musical to slur them in pairs. This puts a little emphasis on the main beats which makes for a good effect. Don’t overdo the forte at the beginning, or the tone will become harsh. It does need to be loud enough, though, to make a good contrast with the piano from the end of bar 4.

There is nothing new now until bar 12. It’s a good idea to slur the two semiquavers in bar 12, coming lightly off the B and landing neatly on the G, which is slurred to the F#. That F# should be lightly detached from what comes next.

The semiquaver run in bar 16 should be slurred to the F# at the end of the bar, which detaches lightly from the G at the beginning of bar 17. Bar 17 should have the same articulation as bar 7.

The articulation in the second part repeats what we have already done in the first part.

General

Don’t be afraid to lift your hands somewhat to move from one place to another, though it’s a good idea only to move as far as is absolutely necessary and no further.

I once had a student who would only move to a new place on the keyboard if he could feel where it was. He ended up trying to play everything legato, crabbing around with his fingers. Needless to say, it didn’t work! Even though I gave him exercises to do to correct this, he wouldn’t get out of the habit, and there came a time when he gave up.

This is a very enjoyable piece to play, and it is made easier to manange by observing the small-scale articulation.

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