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Scarlatti meets the woman who will change the course of his life. With Kate Molleson.

Domenico Scarlatti was well placed to build himself a glittering career in the music business. He was prestigiously talented and born into a family with powerful connections in the music business. His home city of Naples was a major centre for the fashionable new art form of opera. But there were challenges, too. Competition was fierce and musicians often found their fates helplessly tied to the fickle fortunes of their aristocratic patrons. On top of all that, Domenico faced another, distinctly personal, test to his career aspirations; he was working in the shadow of a much more celebrated Scarlatti – his own father! It would take several decades, and more than a few changes of direction, before Domenico finally found his right path, becoming one of the baroque period’s most significant composers. Today, he’s rightly revered for the extraordinary catalogue of over 550 keyboard sonatas he left to posterity. This week, Kate Molleson traces Scarlatti's story and looks at what else there is to discover in his legacy alongside his celebrated keyboard works.

In today’s programme, Scarlatti is introduced to a very special new keyboard student. The daughter of the King of Portugal was not yet 12 years old, but this was the start of a relationship that would dominate the composer’s fortunes for the next three and a half decades.

Sonata in A, K 39
Christian Zacharias, piano

Sonata in A, K 208
Sonata in Am, K 175
Jean Rondeau (harpsichord)

Laetatus sum
Nicholas Daly, treble
Timothy Mead, counter-tenor
Joseph Crouch, cello
Ashley Grote, organ
Choir of King's College Cambridge, directed by Stephen Cleobury

Sonata in Eb, K 434
Sonata in Eb, K 475
Christian Zacharias, piano

Missa quatuor vocum, Gloria, Sanctus & Benedictus, Agnus Dei
Concerto Italiano, directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini