This A major effort was preserved in the 15th and last of the Venice volumes containing Scarlatti's sonatas. Dated 1749, that manuscript contained 42 of the composer's keyboard sonatas, some possibly dating to as many as ten years before the manuscript date. This Sonata in A major, while hardly a late work, is almost certainly not among the earliest ones in the composer's oeuvre. Marked Alla breve—Allegro, it is a bright, lively work, brimming with Scarlatti's characteristic busyness and sense of urgency, and offering a few substantial challenges to the soloist, as well.

As many know, Scarlatti's sonatas were one-movement affairs written in binary form, and this A major work is no exception. It opens with a five-note idea in the upper register that is immediately answered, as well as mimicked, by a four-note statement in the bass. The energetic main theme ensues, its busy music built upon the opening material. After a repeat of the exposition, Scarlatti goes on to present a deftly imagined development of his thematic wares. Here, the music loses none of its energy and color, though it takes on a slightly more serious manner, the mood actually transforming more noticeably than the expository materials.

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