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Frescobaldi's Toccatas and their Stylistic Ancestry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1984

Anthony Newcomb
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Extract

Since there is no standard description of the style of a Frescobaldi toccata, this study must begin by setting out the stylistic characteristics of these pieces, especially as manifested in what one might call the normal toccata type – the first eleven of Book I and the first, second and seventh of Book II. In this initial stage, the reader is referred for more detailed development of my points to my paper Ascoltare e guardare le toccate, soon to be published as part of the acts of the International Frescobaldi Congress, held in Ferrara in September 1983 to celebrate the quadri-centenary of Frescobaldi's birth. That paper illustrates the distinctive features of Frescobaldi's toccata style through close analysis of a single toccata (the ninth of Book I). I shall briefly lay out these features, proceeding from the make-up of the individual section to the make-up of the entire piece, and stressing not only what kind of things one finds in an individual section or entire piece, but also what gives those things coherence and shape.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 111 , 1984 , pp. 28 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 I am excluding the elevation and durezz e ligature type, the pedal type, and nos. 9–11 of Book II, which last seem to explore a new, more nervous and mannered style.Google Scholar

2. One might compare this loosely pulsatile style to the declamatory freedom of contemporary vocal music, as does Frescobaldi in his Preface to the 1615 book of toccatas.Google Scholar

3 See Newcomb, Anthony, ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi, 1608–15: a Documentary Study’, Annales musicologiques, vii (1964–77), 146–47.Google Scholar

4 See Dahlhaus, Carl, ‘Was heisst Improvisation?’, Improvisation und neue Musik, Reinhold Brinkmann, ed., Veröffentlichen des Instituts für Neue Musik and Musikerziehung Darmstadt, 20 (Mainz, 1979), 9–23. If one thinks of ‘improvisatory’ as meaning ‘that which strains the capacity of notation’, ‘that which has been conceived outside the boundaries of the notatable’, then Frescobaldi's toccatas should certainly be included. This second conception of ‘improvisatory’, however, has no intrinsic structural implications.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, the paper by Emilia Fadini soon to be published in Frescobaldi Studies, the acts of the Frescobaldi Congress at Madison, Wisconsin, April 1983.Google Scholar

6 See Kirkendale, Warren, ‘Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as Exordium, from Bembo to Bach’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxxii (1979), 1–45. I am not implying a one-for-one analogy between the successions of the toccata and those of rhetoric, but only emphasizing that the idea of a whole made up of a standard succession of sections was an important one in rhetoric.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 These two sections can be grouped together as an opening, as Alexander Silbiger does (Italian Manuscript Sources of 17th-century Keyboard Music, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1980, 32). In fact many of Frescobaldi's toccatas pass very quickly over the first to the second section.Google Scholar

8 One might parse Toccata 1 of Book II in these terms as follows: The chordal opening dissolves into the passaggi of section (2) by bar 2. The particular opening section that follows (sections (1) and (2) together: bars 1–17) is unusual in that it incorporates in microcosm the four standard sections of the toccata as a whole, with the more individual motives of section (3) of the paradigm appearing momentarily out of the flowing passaggi in bars 5–10 before the flowing passaggi of bars 10–13 appear once more (suggesting a section (4)) as a preparation for the cadence in bar 14. This cadence cannot be the end of the piece, however, for several reasons: it occurs too early to end a toccata of this type; it is on the wrong scale degree; and Frescobaldi undercuts it immediately by abruptly reinterpreting the D-major cadence chord and moving rapidly away toward the real section (3) of the piece, which begins in bar 18. This section (3) makes a gradual transition toward the more flowing cadential passaggi of a typical section (4) in bars 30–36, before coming to another large cadence on the fifth degree in bar 40. An abruptly abandoned pitch peak in bar 36 (see p.42 below) and the failure to return to the final again make this cadence unsatisfactory as a conclusion. Once more we interrupt our linear progress through the paradigm and back up somewhat to resume it at an earlier spot. Bars 40–57 return to the motivic section (3) and take it to its highest peak of energy and intensity before loosening into the cadential diminutions of a section (4) (bars 58–63), which lead finally to a large cadence on the final.Google Scholar

9 Op. cit. (see n. 7 above), 3. Simple citations of this work will henceforth be incorporated in the text.Google Scholar

10 See Lippmann, Friedrich, ‘Giovanni de Macque fra Roma e Napoli. Nuovi documenti’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, xiii (1978), 243, for recent information on this print.Google Scholar

11 See Apel, Willi, ‘Neapolitan Links between Cabezon and Frescobaldi’, Musical Quarterly, xxiv, 419–37; the position is reiterated in his Geschichte der Orgel– und Klaviermusik bis 1700 (Kassel, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Concerning Pasquini's birth, see Agostino Superbi (Apparato degli uomini illustri di Ferrara (Ferrara, 1620), 132), who calls Ferrara Pasquini's patria (‘molt’ anni nella Patria suono i primi Organi'). Concerning his age, see the dedication to Vittoria Aleotti, Ghirlanda de madrigali a quattro voci (Venice, 1593), reprinted in Emil Vogel, Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vokalmusik Italiens (Berlin, 1892, repr. Hildesheim, 1962), i, 14.Google Scholar

13 The German original (op. cit. in n. 11, 413ff.) simply puts Pasquini next to the southern Italians. The English edition, translated and revised by Apel's colleague at the University of Indiana, Hans Tischler, includes Pasquini under the heading ‘First Generation, South Italy’ (The History of Keyboard Music to 1700, trans, and rev. Hans Tischler (Bloomington, Ind., 1972), 422ff.).Google Scholar

14 See Silbiger op. cit., for a description of these manuscripts.Google Scholar

15 The most complete documentation on Pasquini's biography is given in the paper by W. Richard Shindle soon to be published in Frescobaldi Studies (see n. 5).Google Scholar

16 Silbiger (op. cit., 21–22) notes that Pasquini's duple-metre pieces are almost all notated in the older ¢, while Frescobaldi's are in C.Google Scholar

17 See the paper by James Ladewig soon to be published in Frescobaldi Studies (see n. 5).Google Scholar

18 For the letters, see the article by Friedrich Lippmann cited in n. 10 above; for the anthologies dedicated to Laura Peverara, see my article, ‘The Three Anthologies for Laura Peverara, 1580–83’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, x (1975), 329–45; for the visit by Gesualdo and his retinue to Ferrara and the output of the ducal printer Baldini, see my The Madrigal at Ferrara, 1579–97 (Princeton, N. J., 1980), App. II and IV.Google Scholar

19 See Silbiger, op. cit., 101–2 for further details on this manuscript, which contains four-voiced ricercars in score, perhaps the ricercars printed in 1586 (cf. n. 10 above).Google Scholar

20 To judge by the annotations on the present binding, this binding comes from the seventeenth century. A note on the back flyleaf of the manuscript says that it was purchased at Sotheby's on 3 August 1877. Wolfgang Osthoff (Claudio Monteverdi, Dodici composizioni vocati, ed. Wolfgang Osthoff (Milan, 1958), [ii]) claims that the manuscript came from the Biblioteca Borghese, without giving a source for this information. The publically advertised auction of the Biblioteca Borghese was held in 1893, which raises some question about Osthoff's information (hypothesis?).Google Scholar

21 Eleanor Caluori, The Cantatas of Luigi Rossi (Ann Arbor, Mich.) ii, 5–6.Google Scholar

22 The date on the second page of the Tavola at the end of the manuscript, which Roland Jackson (Corpus of Early Keyboard Music, 24 (A.I.M., 1967), xi) wanted to read as ‘alli 6 di luglio … m … ii… ‘, with the end standing for ‘1612 or 1617’, reads in fact ‘alli 6 di luglio’ followed by a rather long word beginning with ‘m’, which is difficult to read, but has far more letters than either 1612 or 1617 in Roman numerals.Google Scholar

23 See my The Madrigal at Ferrara, Appendix II, entries Stella, Trematerra, Filomarino.Google Scholar

24 See my The Madrigal at Ferrara, Appendix II, entry Bassano.Google Scholar

25 Mayone and Trabaci tried the daunting, and no doubt stylistically cramping task of producing toccatas to be printed in score and in movable type, probably because of the lower cost of such a method of printing.Google Scholar

26 We may see this hypothesis as borne out by the nature of the compositions attributed to Frescobaldi in Chigi Q.VIII.205 and Q.IV.24. Etienne Darbellay, in an as yet unpublished paper, has proposed some passages in those manuscripts as preliminary studies for Frescobaldi's Cento partite sopra passacagli. See also Darbellay's speculations about Frescobaldi's struggles in hammering out a final version of the Capricci for the printer in 1624 (‘L'Enigme de la première edition (1624) des Capricci de Girolamo Frescobaldi’, Canadian University Music Review, 3 (1982), 123–57). Darbellay initially thought Frescobaldi's apparent indecision concerning order and content of sections in the Capricci to be an indication that such things were a matter of indifference to Frescobaldi. Darbellay has since agreed in conversation that it might well be taken to indicate precisely the opposite.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 The manuscript is now lying uncatalogued in the library of the Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trent. I want to thank Signor Danilo Curti Feininger and the courteous staff of the library for allowing me to study the manuscript in their lovely and well-equipped reading room.Google Scholar

28 With the possible exception of Florence 106b and individual fascicles of the miscellany Chigi Q.VIII. 205–6, both containing imitative music in score.Google Scholar

29 See Mayone, Book I, Toccatas 2 and 4; Trabaci, Book I, Toccatas 1 and 2, Book II, Toccatas 1 and 5; Macque, the Intrada of Naples 48 or the prime stravaganze of London 30491. (The Intrada is published in modern edition in Silbiger, op. cit., 172–74; the Macque pieces in London 30491 are included in Monumenta musicae belgicae, 4 (Berchem, 1938), ed. Jos. Watelet.) This feature may be connected with the fact that many of these pieces seem to have been conceived for harp. (Mayone, Book I, Toccatas, 1, 2, 4, and 5, Book II, Toccatas 1, 2, 3; Trabaci, Book I, Toccata 2, Book II, Toccata 2; Macque, Capriccio, Prime stravaganze, Toccata a modo di trombette all contain passages that are idiomatic for harp but nearly impossible for keyboard. It is to be recalled that these pieces are notated not in keyboard tablature but in open score.) Several of Trabaci's and Mayone's pieces are explicitly for harp. Scipione Cerreto (Delia prattica musica vocale, et strumentale, Naples, 1601) lists Mayone as a famous virtuoso on the chromatic harp. Virtuosi on the chromatic double harp were in high demand in Naples, Rome, and Ferrara in the period with which we are concerned: see especially Marinotti and Durante, L'Arpa di Laura (Florence: S.P.E.S., 1983).Google Scholar

30 Sec by Macque the intrada of Naples 48, or by Pasquini the toccatas from Chigi Q.IV.27 and the toccatas and variations from Ravenna 545. A modern edition of the intrada is cited in n. 29; Pasquini's surviving keyboard music is published in modern edition in Corpus of Early Keyboard Music, 12 (A.I.M., 1966), ed. W. Richard Shindle.Google Scholar

31 See especially the toccatas from Chigi Q.IV.27 (Shindle 3 and 4) and the variations on the Passamezzo antico found in Trent and Ravenna 545.Google Scholar

32 On the stylistic ancestry of the Fantasie, see my article in Frescobaldi Studies (see n. 5); on the relationship between the (then) sole surviving example of a full-length ricercar by Luzzaschi and the ricercars of Frescobaldi's Book I, see Ladewig, James, ‘Luzzaschi as Frescobaldi's Teacher: A Little-known Ricercar’, Studi musicali, x (1981), 241–64. Since Ladewig's article a recently rediscovered manuscript copy of Luzzaschi's Second Book of Ricercars has been published (Rome: Pro Musica Studium, 1981, ed., Michelangelo Pascale); its first ricercar is identical with the isolated example from the Turin tablatures that formed the basis for Ladewig's article.Google Scholar

33 For example, the succession of important cadences in Toccata 9 of Book II (del 9e tono – on d, with a signature of one flat) is fddddgdfdd.Google Scholar

34 Macque in the Seconda stravaganza of London 30491, gets striking effects by shifting these chains of fifth-related progressions up or down by minor seconds and major thirds at crucial junctures, but this is quite exceptional.Google Scholar

35 In the toccatas of both Frescobaldi and the Neapolitans (once one excepts the infrequent chromatic toccata, a separate subgenre), the harmonic vocabulary is quite simple and regular. The similarity in style between Frescobaldi's toccatas and the ‘modern madrigal’ involves not harmonic extravagance, but rather (as Frescobaldi says in his preface to Book I) style of rhythmic movement.Google Scholar

36 See, for example, the concluding sections (the last 6–7 bars) of Toccatas 3, 4, and 6 in Shindle's edition.Google Scholar

37 I realize that contemporary theory gives me no basis for talking of harmonic rhythm and simple harmonic functions such as tonic, dominant, and pre-dominant in music around 1600, but I do not accept that this makes such talk anachronistic. As Lorenzo Bianconi has already pointed out, the relationship between musical theory and musical practice in the early seventeenth century was not the conventionally asserted one of a lag between theory and practice. There was rather a radical discontinuity between the two (Lorenzo Bianconi, II Seicento (Turin, 1982), 59–66). The theory books of the seventeenth century as a whole give us no way to deal with a Monteverdi Scherzo musicale or madrigal from Book VII – or a Frescobaldi toccata.Google Scholar

Although functional harmony may not have found its way into the theory books around 1600, it was certainly in the music of the time. Musicians such as Frescobaldi, Macque, Mayone, Trabaci, and Pasquini dealt both with simple functional progressions and with the matter of harmonic rhythm everytime they played variation sets on arie, balli, or tenori, such as filled contemporary manuscripts and were becoming ever more common in contemporary prints (see Silbiger, op. cit., 39). These variation sets, together with the madrigale passeggiato, use the same surface vocabulary of small diminutional motives over an armature of chordal changes as toccatas, and are important ancestors of the toccata style. But the harmonic rhythm of both partite and madrigali passeggiati is almost always controlled by the pre-existent metrical structure of the model taken, which is usually quite regular. Some of the variations in Pasquini's partite on the Passamezzo antico in Trent and Ravenna 545, and in his partite on the Romanesca in Ravenna 545, however, show both effective broadening of harmonic rhythm for structural emphasis and some of the most astonishing of the sequential figurational prolongations over a single harmony already cited above. They thus draw quite close to the Frescobaldi toccata in style.Google Scholar

38 Although the word prolongation is borrowed from Schenkerian analysis, Schenkerian scholars have reminded us that the concept is as old as diminution theory.Google Scholar

39 See my Asaltare e guardare le toccate, soon to be published in the acts of the Frescobaldi congress held at Ferrara in September 1983 (Florence: Olschki).Google Scholar

40 I have proposed above that the ancestors of these prolongations are the striking stepwise-sequential prolongations of single harmonies in the toccatas of the Macque school and Pasquini. Frescobaldi expands their time scale – that is, he separates the individual notes in the stepwise prolongation by more intervening notes.Google Scholar

41 See Toccata 1 (p. 1, beginning of system 4) and Toccata 6 (p. 13, middle of system 5) in the Shindle edition.Google Scholar

42 Cf. Praetorius' stipulation in the Syntagma musicum, iii, 25 (cited in Silbiger, op. cit., 31) that the toccata should be an introduction.Google Scholar

43 With one significant addition: Frescobaldi's title page reads: Toccate e partite d'intavolatura di cimbalo. The addition of partite to the grouping can be seen to recognize explicitly the close relationship between the two genres.Google Scholar

44 The six real toccatas by Trabaci (those not designated Durezze e ligature, consonanze stravaganti, etc.) are c.20 breves in length; the nine toccatas of Mayone are c.35 breves in length, and usually incorporate ricercars, often as independent concluding sections.Google Scholar