SFP Video Previews: Thibault Cauvin

The fourth concert in the 2020–21 season of San Francisco Performances (SFP) will mark the beginning of the Guitar Series. There will be five concerts in this Series; and, as in the past, it will be presented in association with the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The Series will begin with a solo recital by Thibault Cauvin, who has prepared an “around the world” program for his performance.

However, the video preview that SFP selected to introduce Cauvin to his audience represents a more focused attention to repertoire. The video presents his own transcription of Domenico Scarlatti’s K. 377 keyboard sonata in B minor. The video was recorded during a performance in Paris in 2013, but that performance took place in conjunction with the preparation of Cauvin’s album Danse Avec Scarlatti (dance with Scarlatti), which was released in June of that year. The entire album presents fourteen Scarlatti sonatas, all transcribed by Cauvin. Fortunately, for those of us that cannot get enough of Scarlatti, two other sonatas from this album have YouTube videos, K. 322 in A major, which, like K. 377, is from the so-called “Parma” collection, and K. 1 in D minor, which is the first of the 30 sonatas published in Scarlatti’s Essercizi (exercises) volume.

All three of these videos make for absorbing viewing. Transcribing keyboard music is no easy matter. While the left and right hands tend to parallel each other at a keyboard, they are assigned different duties on a guitar. The right hand plucks the strings, while the left is responsible for the frets and stopping the lengths of the strings to achieve the necessary pitches, many of which sound simultaneously.

screen shot from the video of Cauvin playing Scarlatti’s 377 sonata

To provide the viewer with insight into the complexity of this technique, the video production draws upon imaginative split-screen techniques. As a result, one tends to be better informed of all the physical requirements necessary to bring any performance to life. Furthermore, because Cauvin generously takes Scarlatti’s repeats, the viewer usually gets a second crack at trying to deal with how-did-he-do-that questions. Consequently, each video provides rich insights into the execution of its respective sonata, insights that may well benefit amateur keyboardists (writing as one in this case) as well as guitarists. For that matter, even those interested only in listening to the Scarlatti repertoire are likely to pick up a hint or two in watching these three videos.