Toccata- chorale prelude

toccata (from Italian. toccare, to touch) is free in form and in style.

characterized by running passages or rapid figures. with optional imitative
or slower sections.
the origin of the toccata is found in the sixteenth-century intonazione,
a short organ prelude of an improvisatory nature. free in form
and liturgical in function; it was used to establish the pitch for the
choir immediately preceding a choral compmition.
Among the earliest toccatas were those of Andrea Gabrieli around
1550, which used chords and scale passages. The toccatas of Claudio
Merulo (1533-1604) established a pattern of five sections: (I) toccata.
(2) imitative treatment. (3) toccata, (4) imitative treatment, (5)
toccata (see No. 153, Vol. I of HAM). The toccatas of B. Pasquini
and A. Scarlatti were of the virtuoso type, using a predominantly perpetual
motion style. Among A. Scarlatti's works. the T occala Nona
is a particularly attractive work. its final section being an arioso which
leads into a climactic crescendo (AMF, No. 23).
While South German composers (Froberger. Kerll) followed the
Italian models. being especially influenced by Frescobaldi, the North
German composers (Buxtehude and J. S. Bach) developed a more
expansive and more fully imaginative form. Many of these. however,
adhere to the Merulo' scheme of five sections, with sometimes a
declamatory interlude. Thus. Bach's Toccata in G minor (Bach Gesellscha/
t, Vol. XXXVI) has the following divisions: (1) toccata,
( 2) double fugue, (3) adagio, (4) a second fugue, (5) toccata.
The toccata style is used also in preludes to fugues. In Vol. I of the
Well-Tempered Clavier the preludes to Fugues II, V, and VI are in
this category.
The perpetual motion type of toccata is found in the virtuoso piano
literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including wOliks
Other single-movement forms
by Schumann, Debussy, Prokofiev, Honegger, Casella, and Khachaturian.
Except for the Merolo five-section form, the toccata pattern uses
a free or at most an optional design, sectional in its divisions. Toccata
is therefore a character-defining rather than a form-defining title.

ASSIGNMENT
1. Analyze No. 23 in A nthology of Musical Forms.
2. Analyze Preludes II, V, and VI in Volume I of Bach's Well-Tempered
Clavier.
3. Analyze the Toccata for piano by Khachaturian or some other
contemporary work using the title of toccata.