Of Scarlatti's 550 keyboard sonatas, all but a relative few have tempo markings. Most of these are early works, and among them is this Sonata in F minor, which is usually played at an Adagio tempo. Scarlatti enthusiast Sacheverell Sitwell, who classified the sonatas according to certain distinctive features, placed this one among a group he called Adagio sonatas. The work features a recurrent motif, whose rhythmic manner has an almost hypnotic effect as the sonata progresses. In a sense, the whole work has that kind flowing manner that would come in such later music as the first movement of the Beethoven "Moonlight" Sonata. But the Scarlatti F minor work here is darker, the motif and its surrounding rhythmic aspects persistent and often ominous sounding. Overall, the piece seems to be evolving toward something, or unraveling layers that reveal greater complication and depth. As the rhythmic and musical flow go unbroken, the mood intensifies in the latter half, and the accrued tension is resolved in the music's emphatic and funereal arrival at the bass register, where dark chords toll and ominous trills sound a fateful ending. This sonata typically has a duration of five to six minutes.

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