It was perhaps a little provocative of Olympia to title this disc ''Essential Scarlatti'', which rather implies that his other 535 or so sonatas are inessential; but it does not, as might have been feared, simply bring together all his best-known pieces. With considerable perception Colin Booth has made an intelligent selection—by no means all familiar—that illustrates many facets of this supremely inventive genius, boldly beginning with the bouncy Kk119 with its repeated notes, scrunchy discords and cross-hands writing. Later we are shown Scarlatti's processionals, wild left-hand leaps, surprise modulations (have there ever been any more extraordinary than in Kk260?), stamping bass octaves (Kk133 and the exhilarating Kk545), and his thoughtful, sedate side as well as his most volatile—Booth enthusiastically takes Kk278's indication con velocita at its face value and tears hair-raisingly through Kk517 faster than I have ever heard it.
He is obviously a highly capable player, and employs here an Italian-style instrument he himself built (though not, apparently, that pictured on the cover) of incisive tone, ringingly bright in the treble. He has clearly given the music much thought, and convincingly argues for shortening some written note-values; he understands how to produce the effect of accents—even sforzandos in Kk215—by shortening immediately preceding notes; and he does his best to undermine Clementi's nickname of the ''cat's fugue'' (which is in G minor, not D minor as listed) by playing the subject staccato, which no cat walking across the keyboard could do. Booth interprets Scarlatti's marking tremulo (and sometimes trills too) as mandolin-like repeated-note thrumming; and he is not afraid to add extra ornamentation in repeats. His interpretations are always interesting but sometimes open to question. I don't at all like his extreme liberties in Kk119, introducing changes of pace and huge rubatos and beginning with a quasi-extemporizing hesitancy, nor his addition of an extra beat (an effect of over-phrasing) to bars 2, 4, 6 and 8 of Kk280, nor the very free opening (quite outside the triple metre) of Kk215. Nevertheless the disc as a whole has a freshness and vitality that indicate a musicianly response to this most stimulating of composers.'