Girolamo Frescobaldi (jan 1, 1583 – jan 1, 1643)

Description:

Written keyboard works rooted in improvisatory practices.

Organist at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome from 1608 to his death. Flamboyantly impressive keybaord composer at a time that increasingly valued showmanship. There was a new theatrical quality that was now as avidly cultivated by instrumentalists as it had long been by vocalists.

Wrote toccatas (which are formally unpredictable), and partitas, which consists of variations over a ground bass.

The toccata has always been associated with pieces open yet discontinuous in form. To sustain interest, they rely not on the continuous development of motives but on contrast--in texture, meter, tempo, and tonality--between short, striking sections. Striking meant virtuosic as well; tocattas, like some earlier kinds of improvisations, were often festive display pieces that turned the very act of playing--or "touching" the keys (toccare means "to touch")--into a form of theater.

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