Domenico Scarlatti (b. Naples, 1685; d. Madrid, 1757) 

It is an interesting music historical fact that Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Frideric Handel were all born the same year. Domenico Scarlatti became organist and composer at the Royal Chapel in Naples at age 16. Like his father, Alessandro, he wrote operas during that time, but he was such an overtowering virtuoso of the harpsichord that his works in other media are often considered insignificant by comparison. About 600 of his sonatas have survived, of which only 30 were published by the composer himself. The sonatas consist of only one movement, many of which feature technical devices such as trills, crossing of the hands, wide skips, and measured tremolos. His works mark the turn of Italian keyboard music from the baroque to the early classic period. Although he was an Italian, he spent much of his adult life in Spain, where he was influenced by guitar and Spanish dances. In spite of these influences, his compositions are more similar to those of other Neapolitan composers, although they are more dazzling, brilliant, and coloristic than those of his contemporaries.