write out the figured basses, and thus form some idea of the music.
The figures are an outline of what was in the composer's mind; but
these basses, like those of Bach and Handel, so simple, so clear to
the composers who penned them, will always remain more or less a _crux
criticorum_. It will be noticed that the three movements, as in some
of Corelli's sonatas, are all in the same key.

We now give the opening bars of the three movements of the piece for
one or two cembali:--

[Music illustration]

All the other sonatas are more or less after the pattern of the one
given. The other two volumes contain suites, airs with variations,
arias, and a quantity of short figured basses, apparently as studies.

Before closing this short chapter we will add a word or two about
Italian music for the harpsichord at the beginning of the eighteenth
century. A recent writer remarks that "Domenico Scarlatti seems to
spring full-armed into the view of history." But his father, the
renowned opera-writer, Alessandro Scarlatti, wrote music for the
harpsichord, also his pupil, Gaëtano Grieco, who succeeded him as
Professor at the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesù Cristo (Naples) in
1717. The influence of the master can be clearly traced in the music
of the pupil; and, if one may judge from the simpler character of
Grieco's music[55] as compared with that of D. Scarlatti, he, too, was
a predecessor. Grieco is said to have been born about 1680; D.
Scarlatti was born in 1683; but this, of course, decides nothing as to
the dates of their compositions. The harpsichord music of G. Grieco
has both character and charm, and it is indeed strange that none of