PIETRO DOMENICO PARADIES: 7 Sonatas for Harpsichord, 1754 – Filippo Emanuele Ravizza, harpsichord – Music Media Concerto CD 2025, 77:17 [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
This Neopolitan composer – who shares part of his name with Scarlatti – turned out a dozen short two-movement sonatas as a grouping not that different from the 550-odd sonatas of Scarlatti. In the galant style and often employing rapid hand-crossings as in Scarlatti, the sonatas show both Neopolitan and French influences and often have passages of great modernity considering their mid-18th century date. Some of them make use of different and highly contrasting themes in the two movements, such as one cantabile and somewhat melancholic and the other heroic and very impetuous.
This is the second of two CDs covering all the sonatas; we seem to have missed the earlier release on the same label. The second disc is filled out with the four-movement Concerto in B Flat Major for Clavicembalo. Though less innovative than Paradies’ Sonatas, it is a pleasant work that shows the influence of the British organ concert style in all four movements. The final movement imitates birds and other nature sounds in a similar manner to which Scarlatti imitated the sounds of flamenco zapateado and guitar-strumming.
The harpsichord used has a lovely tone; it is a copy of a French model from 1769 by Pascal-Joseph Taskin, and the recorded sonics are natural and not miked too closely.
– John Sunier
