Forks in the Road: Teaching Scarlatti's Sonata in C Major (K.159, Longo 104)

Stephen Slottow, University of North Texas

I have twice taught Scarlatti's Sonata in C Major (K.159, Longo 104) towards the end of a first-semester Schenker course. In my experience, the process of teaching this piece tends to crystallize around 'forks in the road': different readings of crucial places, or, to put it another way, different placement of crucial events. Some of these are valid alternatives; some are illusory but appear valid to (certain) students. Of course, such forks are, to a greater or lesser extent, part of a Schenkerian analysis of any piece, but they seem unusually clear in this one. I will discuss four such forks in this paper, commenting on them from an analytical and pedagogical perspective, and showing how the consideration of alternate readings establishes a basic range from optimumly acceptable, to marginally acceptable, to possible but musically insensitive, to just plain impossible.