While Scarlatti is generally credited with writing 555 keyboard sonatas, he may in fact have composed more. Those that survive were mostly preserved in copies, not in manuscript originals. This one was found in the 13th Venice volume of the composer's sonatas, dated 1757. It is marked Cantabile (in singing style), a relatively unusual marking for Scarlatti. Yet among the last 20 or so sonatas that he composed, he used it four times. This G minor effort, while having a lyrical and even singing character, is both more animated and more conflicted than the listener might normally expect from such a marking.

It opens with a lovely theme, whose elegance and graceful trills cannot neutralize the melancholy atmosphere produced by its dark harmonies and mostly descending pathways. Even the secondary material features falling scales and a wistful sense. Still, the music brightens in the latter part

of the exposition, which as usual is repeated before Scarlatti begins his thematic development, typically occurring about midway through. It is here that the Sonata intensifies a bit, divulging a sense of conflict, almost of angst. Themes are not transformed radically, but darken instead and take on a tougher, less cantabile-like character. This approximately six-minute masterwork is among the composer's more profound late sonatas.

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