Composer:	A Scarlatti	Suppliers:
Editor:	Waldemar Woehl	Quartet	A/A/A/B
Publisher:	Edition Peters	Publication:	Peters 11440

"Quartettino" by Alessandro Scarlatti was one of the first five works which I selected for use by the Klingende Runde für jung und alt in 1981 and it was a great success. It became together one of our best items in The Schwanewede Recorder Consort and later inspired the name of the Quartettino Recorder Consort. It was also played in Blue Monday and Blue Tuesday.
It has three movements: Adagio, Allegro and Minuet. For some reason or other, the first two bars of the Adagio have always been difficult to get into when first playing this work, but once this hurdle has been cleared the rest a fairly straightforward. It is one of those pieces of music on which one never stops working and refining. For me, it is a special joy to play the bass part (although I have also played the second voice, many, many times). The final minuet - only 16 bars, repeated, was also great fun. Here, in every group, we played follow my leader, whereby the first voice should improvise, the degree of intricacy being immaterial, and the following voices should do their best to imitate the improvisation.