Volume Six of Naxos’ Scarlatti cycle introduces pianist Evgeny Zarafiants to this series. The large servings of tone color, rubato, and sustain pedal he pours upon 16 sonatas will delight those who don’t mind Scarlatti played like Chopin and will infuriate purists. Some interpretations work better than others. The K. 135 E major’s lily-gilded cadences and heavy accents don’t hold a candle to Horowitz’s supple fingerwork and rhythmic focus. The D major K. 478 and C-sharp minor K. 247 sonatas are slowly paced and languidly phrased to the point of shapelessness. Zarafiants’ sectionalized rubatos and sudden speed-ups in the K. 419 F major sonata become more predictable as the music progresses.
By contrast, K. 318’s rounded corners and limpid detail are beautifully proportioned, and the toccata-like passagework in the F-sharp minor K. 67 swings with rhythmic crispness. The pianist’s leisurely, rhapsodic account of the G major K. 259 sonata drastically differs from Pletnev’s fleeter, more overtly worked-out performance. In all, this is a considerably mixed bag, yet although Zarafiants is not so individual nor consistent a Scarlatti interpreter as the aforementioned artists–along with other great Scarlatti pianists like Maria Tipo, Marcelle Meyer, and András Schiff–his best playing certainly merits attention.
