Dueling Harpsichords

Thomas Roseingrave was one the best harpsichordists in Ireland. In December 1709 he received permission from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin to travel to Italy to expand his musicianship. But in Venice his career nearly ground to a halt when he encountered a keyboard phenomenon the likes of which he had never seen. Thc story comes from the English traveler and musicologist Charles Burney:

“He was invited as a stranger and a virtuoso to the house of a nobleman where, among others, he was requested to sit down at the harpsichord and favor the company with a toccata as a specimen of his virtuosity. And says he, ‘Finding myself rather better in courage and finger than usual, I exerted myself and fancied by the applause I received that my performance had made some impression on the company.’

“After a cantata had been sung by a young woman, a grave young man dressed in black and in a black wig, who had stood in one corner of the room very quiet and attentive while Roseingrave played, was asked to sit down at the harpsichord, which he began to play. ‘Rosy’ thought ten hundred devils had been in the instrument. He had never heard such passages of execution and effect before.

“The performance so far surpassed his own–and every degree of perfection to which he thought it possible he should ever arrive–that, if he had been in sight of any implement with which to have done the deed, he should have cut off his own fingers. Upon inquiring the name of this extraordinary performer, he was told that it was Domenico Scarlatti, son of the celebrated composer Alessandro Scarlatti.

Roseingrave declared that he did not touch an instrument for a month after the encounter. However, he became very intimate with the young Scarlatti, followed him to Rome and Naples, and hardly ever quitted him while he remained in Italy.”