Toccata

(It. "touched")

   Keyboard composition that, when played on the organ, might have been used as a prelude or verset in Christian liturgies in Italy and German-speaking countries. "Toccata" connotes rhapsodic passagework and improvisation, although many works so entitled have passages of strict imitation. The earliest printed collections appear in 1591 and 1593 in Italy, the latter including works of Claudio Merulo and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. The dominant figure in the 17th century was Girolamo Frescobaldi, particularly in Recercari et canzoni (1615) and Fiori musicali (1635), whose innovations were brought northward to Austria by Jakob Froberger. The organ toccatas of Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach are linked to a concluding fugal section or separate fugue, thus contrasting free and strict compositional methods. In later repertory, the most famous example is probably the "Toccata" concluding the Fifth Organ Symphony (1882) of Charles Marie Widor.

   See also Canzona; Ricercar.