Frescobaldi: Stylus fantasticus und die Kunst der Variation

Featuring

Luca Guglielmi
Girolamo Frescobaldi

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Composer Biography

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) is increasingly being recognized as one of the greatest masters in music history, thanks to recent research and the nearing completion of his complete works.

Instruments

The organ used for tracks 10-17 was built by Giacomo Filippo Landesio in 1750 in Luserna San Giovanni, Turin, and was restored in 1998.

Compositional Technique

Frescobaldi's toccatas are distinguished by their diversity, featuring surprising harmonic richness, a rejection of stereotypical figuration, and unpredictable figures that can range from profound recitative to dazzling tonal fireworks.

Compositional Technique

Frescobaldi's innovative contrast between free and fixed meters, often augmented by dance-like triple-time sections, is considered one of the deep roots of Bach's toccatas.

Instruments

The harpsichord used on this recording is a 1994 copy by Michele Barchi of an anonymous 17th-century Italian instrument, tuned to ¼ comma meantone temperament.

Recording & Production

This album was recorded in two different churches in the Turin region of Italy in April 2008.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Frescobaldi's aesthetic is characterized by the free stylus fantasticus, with its endless inventiveness in toccatas, and the art of variation, including contrapuntal, thematic, and metrical-rhythmic forms.