Javier Perianes is a pretty familiar name to Australian audiences, having embarked on a Beethoven piano concerto cycle with the Sydney Symphony. Despite these Scarlatti sonatas being quite a different beast to a concerto, I’m pleased to report that Perianes is just as comfortable with the quicksilver moods of Scarlatti as with Beethovian drama.

His skill is on display from the first moment, with the technical demands not getting in the way of some serious fireworks. The Sonata in D, K492 starts with what seems a simple exercise in thirds before ripping into a set of lightning-quick demisemiquaver runs, for instance.

Scarlatti’s pieces almost all use the same form (good ol’ binary form, nothing beats that!), so there’s a definite need for the player to inject some drama throughout, particularly on repeats. Perianes brings on his ornamentation A-game here, with some wonderfully sparkly trills and mordents spilling out in each piece. They’re unpredictable, too – once or twice he clearly has fun doing the exact opposite and not over-ornamenting, ending a gigantic, flashy run simply and sharply.

That being said, I couldn’t help feeling rather Scarlatti-ed out by the end of this album, and...