Girolamo Frescobaldi: Toccate, Canzone e Partite

The keyboard works by Girolamo Frescobaldi (Ferrara, 1583 – Roma 1643) are undoubtedly one of the most important literary highlights of its kind. They also represent one of the key milestones in the long and difficult path this genre underwent to achieve the equal status enjoyed by vocal music.Until then, “cultured” music enjoyed, cultivated and supported by the aristocracy, was music intended exclusively for voice. During the era of Humanism and the Italian Renaissance, the courts were well and truly at the centre of the best that Europe had to offer musically (and not only): firstly, there was the Flemish polyphony for mass services and motets, then poetry in music for solo voices accompanied by aeri and frottole, and lastly, the genre that best of all explored the infinite possibilities of the text-music relationship: the madrigal.