2015 | Topic

Toccate & Concerti 1615-1715

When Girolamo Frescobaldi published his First Book of Toccatas in 1615, he was in its seventh year of service as organist at St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. This beautifully engraved collection had great success and was reprinted several times until 1637. Frescobaldi’s publication spread throughout Europe and opened a new style of Toccata composition whose basic elements are the "contrasting affects". The composition is no longer built on the traditional rules of counterpoint, but as Frescobaldi says in his preface, on the emotions, like in the contemporary madrigal. Rhetoric, not counterpoint, becomes the interpretive key. The Toccata becomes a journey through the emotions, a story told at the keyboard where, in the absence of text, musical figures are entrusted to communicate different emotions.

  • Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
    • Toccate Libro Primo (Řím 1615): free choice, Ed. Suvini-Zerboni (Darbellay) or Ed. Bärenreiter (Stembridge) or Ed. Zanibon (Gilbert), not old Bärenreiter (Pidoux)!
    • Ricercari e Canzoni Francese (Řím 1615): free choice, Ed. Suvini-Zerboni (Leonhardt) or Ed. Il Levante (Carideo) or Ed. Bärenreiter (Stembridge), not old Bärenreiter (Pidoux)!
  • Paolo Quagliati (1555-1628)
    • Toccata dell'Ottavo Tono (G. Diruta, Il Transilvano)
    • Canzoni e Ricercari (Řím 1601), free choice, Ed. Andromeda (Carideo)*
  • Georg Muffat (1653-1704)
    • Apparatus Musico-Organisticus (Salzburg, 1690), Toccata 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, Performers' Facsimile 181, New York, or Ed. Doblinger (Radulescu)

(For those who have difficulty in finding the scores marked by an asterisk, copies of the books or PDF files will be available.)

 

On the 1st of August 1715, Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar died at the age of 18. He was a violinist and composer and his interest in the Italian instrumental music inspired Bach and Walther to transcribe for the keyboard many concertos of the most famous Italian composers, like Albinoni, Vivaldi, Marcello. The Italian style strongly influenced keyboard music in Bach's time.

  • Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
    • Toccata in d, BWV 913
    • Canzona in d, BWV 588
    • Fantasia in C, BWV 570
    • Fuga in C, BWV 946 (after T. Albinoni)
    • Concerto in F, BWV 978 (after A. Vivaldi)
    • Concerto in d, BWV 987 (after Johann Ernst von Sachsen)
    • Concerto in d, BWV 974 (after A. Marcello)
    • all of the above: Ed. Bärenreiter

Basso continuo and improvisation

  • Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634)
    • Organo Suonarino (1605), new complete critical edition by E. Bellotti, Il Levante, 2014
  • Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710)
    • Versetti in Basso continuo per rispondere al coro (1704), in: Opere per tastiera vol. 7, Ed. Il Levante (Carideo)*