Toccata

Angela Hewitt is a highly esteemed pianist, particularly noted as a Bach performer, but accomplished in an exceptionally large repertory that embraces all eras of keyboard music. The daughter of an organist, Hewitt began to study piano at age three, making a public debut at the age of four, winning a scholarship at six, and eventually adding studies in ballet, singing, violin, and recorder.

For this first recording, Andrea Buccarella explores the history of the most emblematic form of Baroque music, from its appearance in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century right up to its apotheosis in Johann Sebastian Bach: the toccata. With its inventiveness, its formal freedom, its contrasting effects of virtuosity and emotion, the Italian toccata – whose name probably comes from the verb toccare (to touch/play) – opened the way for the stylus fantasticus that was to dominate Germany in the late seventeenth century. In order to give each period its optimal sound, Buccarella plays copies of four different harpsichords – two Italian, one Flemish and one German – which, in their dates and types of construction, illustrate the principal stages of Baroque instrument making.

Vocalion favourite Paul Mauriat makes a welcome return with a further two albums, El Bimbo (1975) and Toccata (1973), which presented the complete original stereo and quadraphonic mixes of 24 titles culled from his back catalogue. Originally produced for the Japanese 4DX series, this reissue makes them widely available for the first time.

High Quality Non-Compressed Japanese Import SACD! Superior Sound!
Organist Ales Barta performs compositional works by J.S. Bach, Brahms, Liszt, Franck, Boellmann, and Messiaen.
This Exton Laboratory Gold Line Hybrid Stereo disc is a high quality non-compressed Japanese Import SACD. Recorded on a custom Sony DSD recorder, this audiophile SACD is packaged in an XRCD-like luxury digipak. This disc includes a booklet with detailed microphone and equipment diagram and placement used for each individual recording! Superior quality Japanese Import SACD, manufactured in Yokohama, Japan. Only the best recordings - technically and artistically!