Toccata
A virtuosic, free instrumental piece.
What it means
The toccata is a virtuosic piece for keyboard instruments whose name comes from the Italian word for “to touch”: what is meant is the striking of the keys, as opposed to the bowed or sung tone. Characteristic are rapid runs, broken chords, chordal strokes, and an improvisatory quality. Free sections often alternate with strictly worked ones, so that a sequence of contrasting parts arises; in many cases the toccata forms a pair with a fugue.
Musical use
The genre developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and served initially to bring instrument and room to sound and to introduce a key. From this it became a piece in its own right, showing the instrument's possibilities and the player's skill. In organ music the toccata remains alive to the present day, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often as an evenly running piece with a motoric character. The title is also common for piano and for other instruments, mostly for pieces with continuous fast movement. The name comes from the Italian toccare, to touch, and refers to the striking of the keys.
Performance practice
Keep the movement even; motoric toccatas live on rhythmic stability, not on acceleration. With older toccatas of alternating sections, plan the transitions and shape the free parts with controlled timing, not arbitrarily. On the organ, choose a registration that preserves clarity; too full a registration turns fast runs into a blur of sound, especially in reverberant rooms. Adapt the tempo to the reverberation and articulate more distinctly than would be necessary in a dry practice room.
Bear in mind that older toccatas and the motoric toccatas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries make opposite demands: the former call for free timing and the alternation of contrasting sections, the latter for unconditional rhythmic stability. Check the type before you approach the shaping. Early toccatas come from Claudio Merulo and Girolamo Frescobaldi. In the twentieth century, Widor and Prokofiev wrote famous toccatas.
Check whether the piece belongs with a fugue, because many editions print the two parts separately.