Rossi: Music for Organ and Harpsichord

Castagnetti, Riccardo

94966

The "Toccate e Correnti d’intavolatura d’organo e cimbalo", probably published around 1634, are the only surviving publication of keyboard music by Michelangelo Rossi (c.1601-1656). Rossi’s frequent use of unexpected harmonic turns, expressive chromaticism, dissonances with unusual resolutions, and abrupt changes of texture, is an evident sign of Gesualdo’s influence on his musical language. Rossi was also a Genovese contemporary of Girolamo Frescobaldi, who exercised a strong underlying influence on Bach. In their toccatas Frescobaldi and Rossi tried to create what might be called a ‘keyboard madrigal’, which are not transcriptions of texts but share with that genre a powerfully expressive appeal far distant from contemporary, dryly functional dances and toccatas. The toccatas are highly elaborated and developed fantasias, whereas the correnti, as their name implies, are simple, pacy little numbers, most of them barely more than a minute long.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

5028421949666