The Seven Toccatas for Harpsichord

The earliest Italian toccatas, those of the Gabrielis, for instance, at the end of the sixteenth century, consist of a simple alternation of scale-passages and chords within a limited key-range. Merulo's transformation of the chords into extended fugal sections and Frescobaldi's addition of vocal ornaments (affetti cantabili), complex fingerwork (passaggi) and more extreme dissonance (durezze) underlined and enriched the vital contrast between tension and relaxation in the toccata, and Northern composers such as Sweelinck, Froberger and Buxtehude regularized it's more wayward Italian features to suit German taste, frequently confining it's function to that of preceding a fugue, but never robbing it of the chance of brilliant display. The form remained relatively free, however, and Bach seems to have used the name in three ways: as the companion to a fugue (prelude, fantasia); as the introduction to a suite (Partitia in E minor); and as a group of contrasting virtuoso movements (two organ toccatas and the seven for harpsichord). - Colin Tilney ©1988