An old form of piece for the organ or harpsichord, somewhat in the free and brilliant style of the prelude, fantasia, or capriccio.
a virtuoso piece for keyboard (usually organ or harpsichord) employing dazzling passage work and dramatic chords in an idiomatic setting for the instrument.
Improvisatory showpiece for organ, often an introductory movement preceding a fugue (Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, CD 1 ). Originally the term toccata (keyboard music, "touched" with the fingers) was used as opposed to cantata (sung music) and sonata (instrumental music).
An improvisatory style of keyboard music especially popular during the Baroque.
A piece for keyboard, usually technically demanding, intended as a display for virtuosity.
a baroque musical composition (usually for a keyboard instrument) with full chords and rapid elaborate runs in a rhythmically free style
a composition for the keyboard originally intended to exercise the touch, as its name suggests
a composition, usually for the organ or another keyboard instrument, written, or improvised, in free style with full chords and elaborate runs intended to show the skill of the performer
a musical composition, usually for the keyboard, in a free style with full chords and elaborate runs
an improvisatory solo work characterized by rhapsodic sections and rambling scale passages alternating with imitative or fugal sections
a rhapsodic form of instrumental music
"touch piece," virtuoso showpiece with an improvisational character
An important type of early keyboard music characterized by rapid, repeated notes, designed to "show off" the instrument, composer, and the performer.
a piece designed to display virtuosity
(it.) - Brilliant, prelude-like composition. [back
Virtuoso composition, generally for organ or harpsichord, in a free and rhapsodic style; in the Baroque, it often served as the introduction to a fugue.
an important type of early keyboard music, originating in the sixteenth century but cultivated mainly in the Baroque period
A virtuoso work characterized by brilliant passagework, and often perpetual motion.
Toccata (Italian for to touch) is a piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple instruments (the opening of Claudio Monteverdi's opera Orfeo being a notable example).
