CD notes-“Intavolatura”

The five Toccatas are characterised by the combination of different and contrasting sections, in such a way to create a dynamic and intentionally varied structure. The Toccata II is composed of four sections that follow each other seamlessly: the first side is characterised by melodic and harmonic sequences, that is followed by a more rigorously contrapuntal second part, the third one is a galliard, while the last section is structured as a series  of virtuoso melodic elements.The Toccata III has a more elegiac character in which more rhetorical aspects of Kapsberger’s language emerge. The Toccata V starts with an harmonic series realised with free arpeggios, followed by an imitative section and concluded with a final triple meter. The Toccatas IV has a more free structure, in which different thematic ideas follow one another to create a distinctive musical discourse.  The Toccatas I, which closes the CD, is the first piece of music from Book I of 1604. It includes many elements that are already present in the later production, such as idiomatic instrumentation ideas, polythematic structure, rhetorical devices etc…