Pulcinella’s opening theme, noted by her butler Domenico Scarlatti.

Catty Scarlatti

Wednesday, 30 October 2024 10:19

It was Domenico Scarlatti’s birthday on 27 October. He would have been 339 years old. An absolute baroque star and pioneering king of the keyboards (harpsichord and early piano) he is best known for his sonatas, more than 550 of them, written in a distinctive style featuring rapid runs, dramatic harmonic shifts, lots of hand crossing for the performer and Spanish-style percussive effects. Very lively and engaging, which is more than can be said for the titles of his works: try rocking along to something called Sonata in E major (K380) or Sonata in D minor (K 213).


This changed when his cat Pulcinella took things into her own paws. One morning she leapt on to the keyboard and stalked up and down, producing intriguing dissonant effects and unorthodox intervals. Scarlatti noted down what she had improvised and used it as a theme for a fugue. Naturally he called it Fugue in G Minor (K30). Snappy. Everyone else called it the Fugo del Gatto, or Cat’s Fugue. This is it.

 

 

I am not a fan of the harpsichord. Far too bright and glittery.  Sounds like a disgruntled butler emptying a box of cheap teaspoons down a wrought-iron spiral staircase. If you share my view, try the piano version,  

 

https://youtu.be/N1-xjCCBQjI?si=1GrC7Egl_9RZBXCj

Scarlatti was a huge influence on musical giants such as Haydn and Beethoven among many others, but Pulcinella’s innovative intervention led ultimately to Igor Stravinsky (also a cat lover) and Arnold Schoenberg, the father of atonality, whose goal in life was the Emancipation of the Dissonant. No Pulcinella, no Rite of Spring , no Pierrot Lunaire. 

 

(Some dull persons may tell you that the Pulcinella story is apocryphal, or even untrue, but I won’t believe it didn’t happen. Where’s the fun in that? )  

 

What is incontrovertible is that both George Frideric Handel and Anton Reicha took the theme and wrote their own variations on it. And later, American composer Amy Beech was so taken with it that she collaborated with her own cat Hamlet to produce her Fantasia fugata, Op. 87. She included an inscription that read

 

The composer is indebted to ‘Hamlet’, a large black Angora who had been placed on the keyboard with the hope that he might emulate Scarlatti’s cat and improvise a fugue.

You can listen to Hamlet’s work here., played by Joanna Polk.

https://youtu.be/fZcam3H4jfE?si=eg3s3VeDZ7p7jHxB

For more about cats of note, try Musical Cats, part of the Creative Cats series from Clowder Press.





PREVIOUS  |  LISTINGS |  NEXT