/sonatas-catalog

Repository that stores a machine-readable listing of all Scarlatti sonatas, with key, mode, tempo and time signature.

Scarlatti Catalog of Keyboard Sonatas in CSV Format

This repository provides a machine-readable CSV file cataloguing Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, to facilitate further analyses.

File Format

The manuscripts all contain a .csv file containing the following listing information:

  • K (number): Kirkpatrick catalog number of the sonata.

    This file also provides the L (for Longo), P (for Pestelli) and Cz (for Czerny) index equivalents, for informational purposes — even though those catalogs are deprecated or not in use. The file also provides the F index for Emilia Fadini's edition, and the Fl index introduced by Matthew Flannery.

  • Key (string): Key in which the sonata is composed.

  • Tempo (string): Tempo marking(s), if any, of the sonata or movements of the sonata.

  • Signature (string): Time signature(s) of the sonata or movements of the sonata.

    This fields contains the value C for 4/4 (common time) and ¢ for 2/2 (alla breve), otherwise the value for this field is a ratio, such as: 2/4, 3/4, 3/8, 6/8, 12/8.

Sonatas with multiple movements

Some sonatas contain multiple movements: These movements can either have the same key, tempo indication or time signature, or each movement can change these parameters. To encode this:

  • When all the movements of a sonata are covered by the same indication (whether of key, tempo, or time signature), then the corresponding field only contains that single value.

  • When the movements may have different indications, then the corresponding field contains a semi-colon separated list.

Here are a few examples that cover a number of situations:

K,   L,   P,   CZ,  Key,             Tempo,                                 Signature
...
 88,  36,   8,  — , G  minor,        Grave;Andante moderato;Allegro;Minuet, C;3/8;2/4;3/8
 89, 211,  12,  — , D  minor,        Allegro;Grave;Allegro,                 C;3/4;3/8
...
202, 498, 173, 110, B♭ major,        Allegro;Allegro;Vivo,                  3/8;6/8;3/8
...
205, S23, 171,  — , F  major,        Vivo,                                  ¢;12/8
...
333, 269, 338,  — , D  major,        Allegro;Allegrissimo,                  ¢
...
459, S14, 167,  — , D minor;D major, Allegro;Presto,                        3/8;¢

Indeed:

  • Sonatas K. 88, K. 89 and K. 202 are examples of sonatas with multiple movements, each with the same key/mode, but different tempo indications and time signatures;
  • Sonata K. 205 is an example of a sonata with different movements that have the same key/mode and tempo indication, but different time signatures;
  • Sonata K. 333 is an example of a sonata with different movements that have the same key/mode and time signature, but different tempo indications;
  • Sonata K. 459 is an example of a sonata with different movements, and different key/mode, tempo indications and time signatures.

Sources

License

Acknowledgments

This dataset was curated in the context of a 2020–2021 Dataset Curation Grant by Princeton University's Center for Digital Humanities.