Frescobaldi’s Manuscripts • Adrien Pièce
I can’t remember when I first heard the composer’s name, but my early exposure to Frescobaldi came into my life in an unexpected way. I was at an improvisational comedy performance with my best friend and they called out that they were looking for input on a musician. I yelled out “Frescobaldi!” and my friend looked at me, as if to ask, “Who the hell is that?” The musicians on stage laughed, switching their synthesizer to harpsichord, and began playing something with which the actors started a song. “Do you remember that Frescobaldi? The composer your never heard of?” So who was he?
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (c. 1583 – 1643) was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player whose life straddles the late Renaissance and early Baroque. His professional life places him as the organist at St. Peter’s in Rome. His influence rippled through subsequent generations. Pupils included Johann Jakob Froberger, and his music was known—and used—by J. S. Bach and others.
Further, his music explores flexibility with tempo and rhythm, allowing shifts within compositions. His music, especially so the toccatas for keyboard, interweave fast passagework, meditative segments, and include affetti, a codified musical syntax designed to move the listener. Because his style crosses from Renaissance to the Baroque, understanding him helps us see how “old rules” begin to loosen, and how expressive freedom is born from mastery of tradition.
In this album, each of the two discs is focused on music for one instrument: the first, organ, the second, harpsichord. The organ used is located at the St. Francis Church in Lausanne; the harpsichord used is a modern-day copy, recorded in Germany. The sound of both spaces is remarkably different; the opening disc with organ gives us ample sense of the space without losing transparency. As far as organ recordings go, I think it’s well made.
The liner notes with this album highlight the source of these pieces, taken from manuscript sources. Those already familiar with Frescobaldi’s keyboard works will undeniably recognize some of the pieces included in this release, alongside those that may well be new.
One I am familiar with is the Capriccio fatto sopra il Cuccù. The fascination with natural sounds will of course continue throughout the baroque, from Biber’s Sonata representativa, to Vivaldi’s Seasons as just two of many possible examples. The cucu theme notwithstanding, this piece for me serves as a type of aural kaleidoscope.
Toccatas, as I was taught, were pieces to warm the fingers. The one featured on track 8 combines long held notes in the left hand with more florid passagework in the right. The harmonic movement is slow, by comparison to other pieces. The piece does well to give us the special harmonic signature of the instrument used, one tuned to unequal temperament. The organ, I think, was a good choice for this repertoire.
Frescobaldi is well known for his command of counterpoint. Ricercare and canzoni are tied to contrapuntal writing. The eponymous Canzona Frescobaldi is the type of piece that may have appealed to the later J.S. Bach. Like a good Bach fugue, Frescobaldi’s subjects are easy to follow mentally. Pièce does a great job at choosing tempos that serve the music well without ignoring the acoustic nature of the church where he’s performing.
The Toccata Terza on disc 2 is significantly longer than the aforementioned toccata for organ. What’s immediately recognizable in Pièce’s interpretation is again the use of a temperament that exudes great color onto the harmonic journey Frescobaldi has planned for us. This temperament kind of directs where the composer can go, and where to he best stay away; it’s a new sound world for many of us and one that I found enlightening. Pièce’s performance of this piece is well-done; however there is likely a few moments where a performer could milk even more out of the changes of harmony to surprise and arrest us.
The Fantaisie du Seignieur G. Frescobaldi was a new piece to me: the harpsichord’s tuning and the chromatic inflections make the opening especially spicy. I especially appreciated in this piece the timbre of the instrument, there’s a particular purity to this instrument’s sound that I find serves the music well.
The Romanesca is chordal progression that many composers would use to provide their own variation upon. Tracks 15-16 provide Frescobaldi’s take upon the progression. Throughout I admired Pièce’s playing, but I kept going back to wanting a tad more conflict here and there, we can get that perhaps with not playing slave to a metronome. As good as his playing is, there were times I wished he approached the freedom that characterizes Marco Mencoboni’s playing.
All that said, this album with generous programming for organ and harpsichord is an excellent introduction to the world of Frescobaldi’s keyboard music. There is a freshness to his style that today I find satisfying. This may be simplistic, but there’s often joy to be found when this music pauses and we can relish in the well-tuned thirds of a triad.
