Toccata

Toccata (from Italian toccare " touch, touch, touch " ) is one of the oldest names for instrumental pieces, especially for keyboard instruments, and originally from Sonata, Fantasia, Ricercar, etc. are not very different, but most of free musical structure, in the character of an advertised improvisation that goes mostly in short note values ​​and full-voiced chords between fast passages.

Early Baroque

Oldest Toccatas for Organ were published in 1598 by Claudio Merulo, but written earlier. They usually start with some harmonies, which are then broken in various ways with runs, arpeggios and other passages; also be interspersed with small fugal little sentence. A particularly dramatic expression of this style, the type of the Toccata con durezze e Ligature developed, ie with "cure " and " bonds " which the compositional style of the respective works to be particularly rich in (often really 'hard' dissonant, prepared by bank bonds) Provision characterized. This often harmonically daring, expansive works find another expression in the marked the date of its liturgical use after as Elevationstoccaten ( Toccata per l' all'Elevatione or Elevatione ), very popular, mostly mystical, worn records.

This is so developed, very emotionally charged manner of composition finds its first climax in the art of organ Girolamo Frescobaldi and will soon be adapted by composers such as Gottlieb Muffat, Johann Jakob Froberger, Johann Caspar von Kerll or Franz Xaver Murschhauser also in southern Germany.

High Baroque

The culmination of the free organ style at the time of the High Baroque in Northern Germany is the Stylus Phantasticus, opens into the well and especially the Toccatenkunst. The case, for example, by Dietrich Buxtehude or in the central German organ music by Johann Pachelbel neat form, usually still rather fugal intermediate blocks on, as that they are since Johann Sebastian Bach familiar pair form of the Toccata and Fugue occurs. Even Bach's Toccata in E major BWV 566 still reminds of this form of toccata, familiar but then their use as an introductory piece in conjunction with a joint.

The most common example of this is the traditional under Bach's name Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 In addition to the other major Toccatas for organ such as the so-called Dorian Toccata BWV 538, the great Toccata and Fugue in F major BWV 540, or even extended to the three-part Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major BWV 564 Bach wrote also seven Toccatas for Harpsichord BWV 910-916; these are also all related to a fugue, with some of it sounds beyond even another joint. Other Clavier of Bach's works, such as the Prelude in B flat major BWV 866 from The Well Tempered Clavier wear toccata-like traits.

Romantic

In the return to Bach Robert Schumann wrote in 1830 his Toccata in C major, Opus 7 for piano. With the construction of large organs flourished this musical form in the late Romantic period again on: In Germany she grabbed Max Reger on again, in the field of French Romantic organ music acquired the Toccata from the 5th Organ Symphony by Charles -Marie Widor, that from Suite gothique by Léon Boëllmann or the Toccata on Tu es Petra by Henri Mulet, but also the Toccatas Théodore Dubois, Paul Pierné and Eugène Gigouts great popularity. Also, different sets of Louis Vierne, such as the prelude of the Pièces de Fantaisie op 51 employ toccatenartiger figures.

Standen in the Toccatas of the Italian masters and Baroque -free runs, arpeggios, imitations and full grip passages over, we now mean by " Toccatenfiguren " generally good grip disassembled or figured chords that can be easily traced back to a clear harmonic basis. In particular, the school of French improvisers such as Marcel Dupré, André Fleury, Pierre Cochereau or later Jean Guillou, Daniel Roth and Thierry Escaich often used such toccata elements, their development and processing Marcel Dupré in his Cours d' improvisation shows an example.

20th century

The revisiting the Toccata by the organ composers of the 20th century to the " Toccata " is to be seen in the context of neo-classicism and the return to old forms and compositional techniques, as with virtuosic Toccata op 5a by Hermann Schroeder, composer 1930. Switch here free virtuoso parts with polyphonic sections from, as practiced Buxtehude Toccata in the north German organ school. In addition to the method described by Marcel Dupré extraction toccatenartiger elements, for example, from Gregorian motifs that are similar, for example, by Flor Peeters in his Toccata, Fugue and Hymn on Ave maris stella op 28 or in the introductory toccata of " Partita " Veni creator spiritus "(1958) is applied by Hermann Schroeder, we also experimented after the Second world War to the junction of Toccatenstiles with different, often Latin American Tanzidiomen, wrote, for example, Peter Planyavsky a Toccata alla Rumba, his teacher Anton Heiller a dance Toccata. the 1954 resulting Totentanz Toccata of the former organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, Walter Kraft, the introduction to his large ensemble composition forms Lübeck Totentanz after a painting frieze of Bernt Notke. a famous Toccata an English composer is the Festival Toccata by Percy Eastman Fletcher. by John Rutter there is a Toccata in Seven. Swedish organist Gunnar Idenstam links in the first sentence of his Kathedralmusik the archetype of the French- romantic Toccata with elements of rock music.

The New Music zeitigte isolated examples of works for percussion and piano, who led the Toccata back to its original meaning of hitting (Paul Hindemith, Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, Witold Lutosławski, Bernd Alois Zimmermann in his opera Die Soldaten ), further examples of virtuoso toccata for piano found, for example at Leopold Godowsky or Aram Khachaturian.

Toccatas are often played in the church organist to extract or feed the community. Moreover serve Toccatas the review of new or reconditioned church organs, because you can control the intonation of the pipes in all registers, the performance of the wind plant and the function of the valves especially well with these elaborate pieces.