The 550-plus harpsichord sonatas of that most enigmatic of Bach and Handel’s contemporaries, Domenico Scarlatti are far more than just the “Essercizi” which one early edition calls them and have long held a unique fascination for generations of keyboardists. In our own times, memorable recordings on piano include those by Horowitz, Marcel Meyer, Mikhail Pletnev, Yevgeny Sudbin and Angela Hewitt.

It is a testament to Scarlatti’s robust art that each of the above pianists can imbue their interpretations with distinctive, poetical qualities which are more usually to be found in performances of Romantic music – without ever violating the music’s essence. Yet Italian pianist Federico Colli believes there is much...