Staier’s previous Scarlatti records (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 2/92 and 3/93) had aroused in me a keen anticipation for more, which at long last has been fulfilled. He is adept at capturing the mercurial changes of mood and still surprising harmonic quirks of that unpredictable genius, and even when we disagree with his readings they always hold the interest. In particular, he manages to convey the spirit of Scarlatti’s spur-of-the-moment inventive powers, not merely by adding spontaneous extra ornaments or inserting buckshee pauses-for-thought (which, truth to tell, are a bit too frequent), but by his very flexible pace – which may need getting used to. (And I don’t mean just speed: Kk427, which is marked “as fast as possible”, has never been played faster than here, but Kk114 – one of two sonatas including the direction Tremulo to indicate a continuous trill – sounds rushed, and Kk208 is preternaturally slow, drawing attention to a left-hand-before-right mannerism that also affects the pensive Kk69.
Staier makes big variations within Kk394 (the opening taken ad lib) and Kk395, for example, and starts the second half of the bright Kk414 at a new tempo. Yet, as the Duchess said of her little boy, he only does it to tease, and he can, when he wants to, maintain an admirably direct forward impulse, as in the C sharp minor Sonata, Kk246, his wonderfully springy Kk209, or in Kk113, with its exhilarating cross-hand leaps. Scarlatti styles exemplified here range from the Neapolitan three-section Pastorale, Kk513 to the savage Spanish scrunches of Kk215, and from continuity – even isorhythm in Kk415 – to constant stop-and-start tactics, as in Kk426 (which, together with its companion Kk427, calls for an instrument with a top G, which this Keith Hill copy of a mid-eighteenth-century German harpsichord evidently has). For some unfathomable reason Teldec’s booklet totally ignores the programme and instead prints a completely irrelevant (and rather pointless) short story.'