Jesting with Art: Music for Harpsichord

Sponsored by the Pro Arts Society of Calgaray, this programme explores some of the most extravagant and playful music for harpsichord from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including three kinetic sonatas from Domenico Scarlatti’s only published collection of sonatas (which he called ‘an ingenious Jesting with Art’ ), several inventive pieces by Roman composer Girolamo Frescobaldi, including an extended fantasy on the call of the Cuckoo, a flamboyant set of variations on a ground bass by his contemporary Bernardo Storace, and a richly-inspired synthesis of all of those styles, J.S. Bach’s celebrated Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.