Girolamo

This is the fifth and final volume in the Ligia series of the complete keyboard music of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643). Previous volumes reviewed in Fanfare include the Primo libro di capricci and Secondo libro di toccate (both 34:2), and the Primo libro di toccate (34:6). The present volume includes published collections from the beginning, middle, and end of Frescobaldi’s career. The Primo libro delle fantasie was published while the composer was still in Milan; it served as a kind of audition piece that eventually won him the position of organist at St. Peter’s in Rome.

He was as eminent in composing as in playing extemporanously. Among the musicians who were active in the first half of the seventeenth century, Girolamo Frescobaldi (Ferrara, 1583 – Rome, 1643) stands out not only as an organist whose virtuosity and technical skill were superlative and incomparable, but also as a formidable musician who was able to interpret the artistic stirrings in the musical language of his time and to incorporate them, in an effective and significant way, into his vast production for keyboard instruments.