Luogo e data di registrazione		Villa Beatrice d'Este, Baone, Padova (Italia) - 25/28 febbraio 2007 Chiesa di San Bernardino, Verona (Italia) - 24 novembre 2007 *
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Sound Engineers		Matteo Costa, Gabriele Robotti
	Prima Edizione CD		BRILLIANT CLASSICS - 93767 - (2 CD's - durata 59' 00" & 63' 39") - (p) 2008 - DDD
	Cover		The Ideal City - School of Piero della Francesca
	Note		With the patronage of PROVINCIA DI PADOVA.

 

In 1614–15 Girolamo Frescobaldi was restless. His Roman patron, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini was not on good terms with the Pope and Frescobaldi opened negotiations with Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, the new Duke of Mantua, for a position there. He moved to Mantua briefly in Spring 1615 but decided not to stay. In the meantime he had dedicated his First Book of Toccatas and Partitas to the Duke who was in the process of renouncing his cardinalate in order to marry and produce an heir. This was a landmark publication for keyboard music, both for its contents and for the fact that it was the earliest example of such keyboard music engraved on two staves, one for each hand, rather than in vocal score or in tablature. It was a prestigious and very beautiful publication – one of the most attractive of all keyboard prints – hand-engraved (writing in reverse) by Nicolò Borbone, himself a keyboard player and instrument maker. The print went through a number of reissues over the next twenty-two years, each one making some changes and additions. Frescobaldi initially included the twelve toccatas and just three sets of partitas; within a few months he revised those partitas and added another set, as well as four dance movements, the correnti. In 1637 he republished the earlier music, adding a substatial aggiunta or appendix of dance and other lighter music, but also including the monumental cento partite (a hundred variations – there are in fact 124) on the passacaglia bass pattern. The versions on this recording are those of this final edition. The word ‘toccata’ comes from the Italian verb ‘toccare’ (to touch) and was a piece which started by touching the keys slowly, trying out the intended mode and then leading slowly into more defined music. Frescobaldi gave some detailed instructions in a foreword as to how his toccatas were to be played, emphasising freedom of tempo and expression, comparing them to the new 17th-century madrigal style for solo or a few voices, in which each word or phrase was given an appropriate musical gesture. Although instrumental music, these toccatas are essentially heavily ornamented songs without words, arising from the same compositional approach, representing a different affetto or emotion every few bars and bristling with passaggi – virtuoso sections for one or both hands. Despite the brilliance and overflow of figuration each piece has a very controlled and logical structure, contrasting expressive passages with those requiring bravura playing. Interpretation is left very much up to the player who has great freedom within the parameters set out by the composer. On this recording the initial ‘touching’ of the keys is shown by some improvisatory flourishes which lead naturally into the beginnings of many of the toccatas. The first four toccatas are in G Dorian mode, rather like the modern G minor scale, and explore different aspects of that mode and related areas. Toccatas V and VI move to the E Phrygian mode for a more reflective and transparent texture. Toccatas VII and IX plumb the deepest emotional sensitivity: both are in the Aeolian mode, Toccata VII transposed onto D and Toccata IX on A. Toccatas VIII and X are in F Lydian mode but only the sunny Toccata VIII is truly Lydian, since the even brighter Toccata X has the customary Bb in the key signature, making it like the modern major scale. On his title-page Frescobaldi simply says that his music is written for ‘harpsichord and organ’; all of the toccatas can be made to work on both instruments, though most seem written for harpsichord. The final two C Ionian Toccatas XI and XII, however, are clearly conceived for organ, with long pedal notes at the start. Toccata XII is a classic example of the Elevation Toccata, intended for playing during the consecration and elevation of the host at Mass. Since, for Roman Catholics, this was a re-enactment of the Passion, a particularly expressive style was used for the music at this most solemn moment, using durezze e ligature (dissonances and suspensions) to pile on the emotion. Partite are sets of variations on well-known basses, chord-patterns or tunes. Three of the four sets in this First Book are on common basses (Romanesca, Ruggiero, Follia) while the fourth is on a popular tune, the Monica, which reflected the common practice of shutting-up of spare daughters in convents, often against their will; the original song begins: ‘Mother, do not make me a nun’. The basses seem to have had their origin in Spain, where they were used for improvising dance music, but by Frescobaldi’s time they had become somewhat more formalised. Melodies could be fitted above them: the Romanesca bass, for example, works with the tune Greensleeves. Frescobaldi himself fits a popular song, Frà Jacopino, over the Ruggiero bass in his Capriccio (CD2, track 13) where he uses both melody and bass to generate what is essentially another set of six partite. Frescobaldi’s partite are brimming with ideas, virtuoso flourishes, clever disguising of the theme or bass and some highly expressive music, as in the chromatic ninth partita on the Romanesca. Their figuration patterns are very reminiscent of those in the toccatas and the revised partite on the Romanesca, Monica and Ruggiero basses have become highly sophisticated mini-toccatas, straying far from their simple origins, while also leading naturally from one to the next. The partite on the well-known Follia bass, added later, are simpler examples of the more standard treatment of the time. Two of the most popular basses in the early 17th century were the Passacaglia and the Ciaccona, both also originally from Spain. By the 17th century the Passacaglia was a simple repeated four-note descending pattern (doh-te-la-soh); the Ciaccona was less fixed and more complex but in Frescobaldi could be reduced to doh-soh-la-soh. Frescobaldi saw that both patterns were very similar and in the Cento Partite he uses both, moving effortlessly between them and throwing in a corrente section for good measure. The passacaglia was normally set in minor modes and the ciaccona in major, but even here Frescobaldi mixes the two. The set is in three main sections, the third of which acts as an extended coda after the bravura finish to the second section. Frescobaldi marks his modulations ‘altro modo’; strangely, the piece ends in E, rather than in the D Dorian of the earlier sections. The piece is notationally quite complex, with constant changes of time-signature, but in performance it is the seamless, almost relentless, quality that dominates. We can sense Frescobaldi throwing in everything in his armoury to produce one of the finest variation sets of all time. The four correnti are, on the face of it, short dance pieces in triple time but in the hands of Frescobaldi they have a sophistication which reflects the salons of early Baroque Rome for which they were written. The same elegance characterises the dance sets in the aggiunta of 1637. These might – apart from the Cento Partite – seem a somewhat inconsequential set of pieces for a composer’s swansong. Clearly, though, Frescobaldi had been polishing these lighter forms and they provide a useful antidote to the more complex music he had spent his life improvising and publishing. Here too there is care for organisation: the three suites of Balletto-Corrente-Passacagli (the second does not have a Passacagli) prepare the ground for the Cento Partite, the Passacagli of the third suite being longer and anticipating the more chromatic writing of the Cento Partite. The Capriccio sopra la Battaglia is Frescobaldi’s addition to a long-standing genre of battle-music, going back to Clément Jannequin’s chanson La bataille celebrating the Battle of Marignano of 1515. Frescobaldi does not attempt the full battle experience, which is provided for example by William Byrd’s ‘Battel’ suite in My Ladye Nevells Booke, but he does manage to convey, mainly through fanfare motives, something of the confusing atmosphere of a 17th-century battle. Two corrente and ciaccona pairs provide a reminiscence of the Cento Partite and lead to the final piece in the aggiunta, a Capriccio Pastorale, played here on organ flutes and based on a series of pedal notes in one of the parts. This is clearly a Christmas piece, representing the shepherds in the fields, and part of a long line of pastoral symphonies such as those by Corelli and Handel. In Rome it might have been played to entertain the cardinals as they feasted in the Vatican between Christmas Matins and Midnight Mass. In 1615 Frescobaldi also published a collection of Recercari and Canzoni, this one dedicated to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. He was keeping both patrons happy but also, between the two publications, providing a compendium of keyboard works in all the main genres of the day. His toccatas and partitas have never left the repertory of keyboard players and their challenges and rewards are just as stimulating today as they were for those who eagerly snapped them up in the 17th century. © Noel O’Regan, 2008