Texting Scarlatti: methods, outcomes and lessons learned (online)

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‘Texting Scarlatti’ is the first comprehensive study of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas based on analysis of nearly 3,300 contemporary manuscripts and printed copies. The project aims to understand better his approach to composition, trace the reception of his music beyond Spain and across Europe, and apply the findings to modern performance practices. This pioneering work offers a new model for musicological research, combining traditional textual scholarship with cutting-edge technology and collaborative crowdsourcing methods. In this presentation we will illustrate what we have been doing and why, how we have been doing it, and the conclusions we have been able to draw.

Speakers:

Professor Sir Barry Ife is a cultural historian specialising in the literature and music of Spain and Spanish America from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. He held the Cervantes Chair of Spanish at King’s College London from 1988-2004, and was Principal of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama from 2004 to 2017, where he is now a Research Professor. He is currently working on a book on the power of the voice in Cervantes, and since January 2023 has been directing the Leverhulme Trust ‘Texting Scarlatti’ project, collating and analysing nearly 3300 eighteenth-century manuscripts and printed editions of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas. He was appointed CBE in the 2000 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to Hispanic Studies, received a knighthood in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to performing arts education and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of Isabel la Católica in 2022.

Dr Jasper van der Klis studied piano performance with Sebastián Colombo and Alan Weiss at the Utrecht Conservatoire (BMus, 2015) and with Peter Bithell at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London (MPerf, 2017). At Guildhall School he also completed doctoral research on Busoni’s interpretative editions of Bach’s keyboard works (DMus, 2022;supervisors: Professor Sir Barry Ife and Dr Christopher Suckling). As Postdoctoral researcher on the ‘Texting Scarlatti’ project, Jasper is primarily involved with data collection and analysis and oversees the collation efforts of a team of citizen scientists. A Postdoctoral Research Associate in Digital Musicology at Guildhall School and 2025-2026 DISKAH Fellow, he is currently exploring the use of national Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) in musicological research using the Texting Scarlatti dataset.

What is ResearchWorks?

The Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the school and its guests with students, staff and the public.

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