Luogo e data di registrazione		Schlos Bad Krozingen (Germania) - 1977
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Paul Dery
	Edizione LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.35488 EK - (3 LP's - durata 59' 37", 47' 46" & 60' 43") - (p) 1978
	Originale LP		TOCCATA - FSM 53 626 - (1 LP - durata 59' 37") - (p) 1978 - Analogico (Kerll, Pachelbel, Fux, Wagenseil) TOCCATA - FSM 53 614 - (1 LP - durata 47' 46") - (p) 1978 - Analogico (Farnaby) TOCCATA - FSM 53 657 - (1 LP - durata 60' 43") - (p) 1978 - Analogico (Purcell)
	Prima Edizione CD		FSM Adagio - FCD 91 626 - (1 CD - durata 60' 07") - (c) 1993 - AAD (Kerll, Pachelbel, Fux, Wagenseil) FSM Adagio - FCD 91 614 - (1 CD - durata 47' 46") - (c) 1993 - AAD (Farnaby) FSM Adagio - FCD 91 657 - (1 CD - dyrata 60' 43") - (c) 1993 - AAD (Purcell)
	Note		Production by Toccata.

	Music for keyboard instruments in Vienna 1670-1770 (Kerll, Pachelbel, Fux, Wagenseil) With the coronation of Ferdinand III in 1657, the epoch of "imperial music culture" began. Centered chiefly in southern Germany, it was the imperial court in Vienna which set the fashion. Ferdinand III, along with his successors Leopold I, Joseph I and Karl VI, not only commissioned works and had numerous significant compositions dedicated to them, but were also gifted composers and performers. Above all, the art of keyboard performance was greatly admired. It is said that Leopold I had a keyboard instrument in every room of his palace appartment. The imperial court chapel boasted organists who had achieved fame throughout Europe as performers and as composers. Among them towered Johann Jakob Froberger and Wolfgang Ebner under Ferdinand III (1637-1657), Alessandro Poglietti, Johann Kaspar Kerll and Ferdinand Tobias Richter under Leopold I (1657-1705), and Gottlieb Muffat and Johann Joseph Fux under Karl VI (1711-1740). The Viennese organists, influenced first by the Roman masters Girolamo Frescobaldi and Bernardo Pasquini and later by the French clavecinists, cultivated chiefly the toccata, the fuge in the form of a ricercar, the canzona or capriccio as well as dance and character pieces in various forms and cyclic relationships. This recording, performed on an assortment of keyboard instruments available at the time, attempts to present a cross section of this imperial keyboard art. Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1695) worked first under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm who allowed him to study in Vienna and Rome and later employed him as organist in his chapel in Brussels. In 1656 he was hired to lead the electoral chapel in Munich where he wrote mainly operas and church music. In 1673, under the pressure of various intrigues he was forced to move to Vienna, where Leopold I hired him as organist in the court chapel. Here he wrote his keyboard works which belong to the most significant of their type in the second half of the 17th century. The toccatas are modelled after Frescobaldi in the "stylus fantasticus", a synthesis of virtuosic figuration, bizarre rhythms and tense harmonies; the Canzona in D displays contrapuntal finesse coupled with elegant passage work; the concise Ciacona in C is extremely special due to the clever camouflaging of the ostinato bass and the rich technique of variation. Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), organist in Erfurt, Nuremberg and Stuttgart, did hommage to the Viennese keyboard art by dedicating his work "Hexachordum Apollinis" (1699) to the imperial court organist Ferdinand Tobias Richter. Although it is not proven that Pachelbel actually lived in Vienna, it is certain that he was influenced by the keyboard works of Kerll, whose courtly style he applied to the realm of the middle class city. The large, richly decorated Ciacona in C is without a doubt intented for performance on the house organ or the harpsichord. Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741), Karl VI’s "hofkapellmeister", is remembered today mainly as the author of the text book "Gradus ad Parnassum" (1725) and as a master of counterpoint. His keyboard works, which he wrote in his later years, prove that he was also a master of the new "galant" style as well, and these works can stand equally next to the keyboard compositions of Kuhnau, Fischer, Handel and Mattheson. In these works we can clearly view the change from the Baroque "suite" - a more or less given order of various dance movements - to the "divertimento" - a series of character pieces in which various moods are portrayed. The Parthie in G begins with an expressive, recitative-like, freeformed prelude called "Capriccio" which is followed by a "Fuga". After this scholerly introduction, the galant style follows - marked by the cantabile melody in the slow movements and the spirited rhythms in the 2/4 notated fast movements. This style became the hallmark of the Viennese Roccoco. The main representative of this style was Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777), pupil of Fux, court composer and keyboard teacher to the imperial court children. The Divertimento in F was published in 1761 in the printed collection "VI Divertimenti da Camera" Opus 3. It is dedicated by the composer to his most talented pupil, Archduchess Maria Elisabeth, who died in 1808 as abess of a seminary which her mother had founded. Altough harmonically less demanding than the compositions of his teacher Fux, these pieces with their elegant melodic flow and rhythmic wit highly influenced the young Mozart who was to meet Wagenseil a year later in Schloss Schonbrunn.
	Giles Farnaby - Virginal Music In the long list of illustrious Elizabethan keyboard composers, Giles Farnaby remains a unique and fascinating exception. As opposed to such professional musicans as Tallis, Byrd, Bull, Morley and Gibbons, Farnaby was an amateur - a joiner by trade. Only a few fragments of information about his life exist, painting a rather patchy picture of his involvement in music. Though an amateur musician, he was certainly not untrained. In 1592 he obtained his Bachelor of Music degree - the same day John Bull received his doctorate. It is probable that Bull was Farnaby`s teacher. Indeed, if one is to find anyone's influence on his musical style, then it is Bull's. But Farnaby and Bull remain opposites in most respects. Bull's music was powerfull, dynamic and virtuosic; his carreer and reputation were international and spiced with travel. Farnaby posessed an instinctive musical creativity while his life was that of a simple middle class craftsman. Perhaps Farnaby had Bull in mind when he described himself as "a sely sparrowe who presumeth to chirpe in the presence of the melodious Nightingall". But what Farnaby may have lacked in professional training, he made up for with his creative genious. His talent was instinctive. The freshness of his invention keeps his music homogeneous. The best example is "Up Tails All" with its eighteen short variations. One variation grows naturally out of the other. He even includes a Pavane and Galiarde without disrupting the continuity. His Fantasia 10 is one of his best examples of fancy. The dance in triple rhythm with its variations, development and rhythmic juxtapositions frees him from initial Melancolia, expressed poignantly in a subtle treatment of the theme based on the descending fourth. The Fantasia 27 is a transcription of a canzonet-type vocal composition - probably inspired by his canzonet "Daphne on the Rainbow", His "Lachrymae Pavan" is unlike the other Fitzwilliam settings of the Dowland song (Byrd and Morley) in that he pays great attention to text, setting it in madrigal form with detailed word-painting in all voices. His "Farmer`s Pavan" is warm and personal, resembling Byrd`s style. "Mal Sims" or "Molly" was a well-known prostitute, here wittily set in dialogue form. "Muscadin" or "Kempe’s Morris" refers to Will Kemp, the famous comedian who danced a morris dance from London to Norwich in 1599 - this probably being the tune to which he danced. "Tell mee, Daphne", "Tower Hill" and "A Toye" are small jewels, unsurpassed in melodic beauty. "Virginal¢"was the generic term applied to all forms of plucked keyboard instruments in England. The virginals found in England during the 16th and 17th centuries were either Italian or Flemish in origin. The instruments used on this recording represent a cross section of the virginals available in England during Farnaby's lifetime. The Italian spinet, or virginal, is very similar to the instrument believed to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. The spinettino, at four foot pitch, is used as a solo instrument as well as an upper manual to the Italian spinet. The harpsichord by Francesco Nobili, though somewhat later, is built in the earlier Italian tradition. All the instruments used on this recording are mean-tone tuned.
	Henry Purcell - The harpsichord suites With regard to forms, styles and techniques, England's primary contributions to that complex of musical characteristics which we today identify as "Baroque" were developed within her late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century schools of keyboard music. Abstract patterns of melodic sequences and variations, such as those familiar to us in the works of Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), William Byrd (1542-1623), Thomas Morley (1557-1602), Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), along with a few others like them, provided beginnings for one of the most important concepts of the musical Baroque - i. e. that of an "absolute music". This important new concept, the nurture of which in England is further attested to by the English fancy, appears nowhere more significantly than in the keyboard suite, which came into prominence as a fully developed form only towards the end of the seventeenth century in the works of Matthew Locke (1622-1677), Giovanni Battista Draghi (b. ca. 1640) and Henry Purcell (1659-1695). Though undoubtedly influenced by Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667) and by various Italian masters of the suite, Purcell remained true to the English tradition, largely by merit of his meticulous study of the music of the above-named English masters during the formative stages of his own career. Since he was without doubt England’s most important native composer during the Baroque, it is not surprising to discover that Purcell made a very considerable contribution to England's keyboard tradition, even though his work in this vein has not yet been properly evaluated by the musicological fraternity. Purcell's keyboard pieces, though modest in number - there are only sixteen miscellaneous pieces, twentyfour transcriptions and eight suites - are fully worthy of the "English Orpheus" and on the whole do not deserve to be left in the obscurity in which they presently exist. To be sure, even the suites do not call forth the technical virtuosity which, in terms of popularity might bring them into even that modest vogue enjoyed by the keyboard works of Bach and Handel. But musically Purcell's suites compare favorably with any harpsichord music of the mid-Baroque, and well reward the attention of those "who carry musical souls about them", to use Purcell's own phrase from the trio-sonatas he published in 1683. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of these works, at least from the point of view of the connoisseur of early keyboard music, is their highly individual, subjective and, at times, even dramatic character. This quality, which parallels in importance the development of "persona" in song represents another important feature of Baroque style. It may be detected to a certain extent in the keyboard pieces of Orlando Gibbons, Munday and Tomkins. But for the most part, it was Purcell who brought this quality to the fore in English keyboard music. Among the suites, which, incidentally, consist of only three or four movements, and not five as in the contemporary continental suite, this subjective, dramatic quality is to be found thoughout, but is particularly noticeable in the Prelude to Suite No. 2 in G-minor (Z* 661); in the Prelude and Almand of Suite No. 6 in D Major (Z 667); and throughout Suites Nos. 7 and 8 (Z 668-9). There are genuine musical climaxes in these movements, which are quite dramatic, even though the expressive limitations of the harpsichord are such as to restain any crescendo exept that of rhythmic intensity and increasing density of texture. Although still in Purcell's time the keyboard suite remained a very loosely defined form, his eight compositions in this genre are remarkably consistent, being made up, generally, of four movements: Prelude, Almand, Corant and Saraband (or Menuet or Hornpipe). (In this regard, he seems even more consistent than Matthew Locke, possibly his master, and Giovanni Battista Draghi, whose works still reveal something of the character of the earlier "aleatoric" of selective suite). Purcell's Preludes all appear to belong to the class of measured, specifically notated introductory movements. However a few, such as those in F Major (Z 669) and A Minor (Z 663) reveal characteristics of the older unmeasured and improvisatory prelude. The Prelude in C Major (Z 666), on the other hand, clearly conforms to the kind advanced by the Italians - a kind which is similar in many ways to the invention, with its motivic rhythmic patterns, closely imitative style and thematic coherence. Incidentally, the Italian character of this movement is further reinforced by the consecutive sevenths progression which makes up the final precadential passage, a technique which Purcell himself had recommended in his remarks in the final section of the Twelfth Edition of Playford's Introduction to the Skill of Music (1694). Some of Purcell's Corant movements also reveal Italian influence, as do those such as the C Major Corant, which are straightforward and simple, with only a few hemiolic shifts and syncopations. On the other hand, those like the Courante in A Minor, with its more sophisticated style, its complicated rhythmic interplay and its more ornate melodic figuration, reveal French influence. The final movements in triple meter call for little comment, except for the "Hornpipes" in the Suites in D Major (Z 667) and D Minor (Z 668), which show the force of English tradition - a force which in these suites, as in almost all other works by Purcell, remains predominant despite frequent instances of French and Italian influence which may be pointed out here and there. Z * = Franklin B. Zimmerman: Henry Purcell An Analytical Catalogue of his Music (Macmillan. London 1963)