ABSTRACT
The assertion that Frescobaldi's keyboard toccatas can be fully comprehended only within the framework of the seconda prattica will at first appear paradoxical. The fundamental tenet of this practice is that the words shall rule the music-"l'oratione sia padrone del armonia e non serva"1-and an instrumental genre would seem to hold little promise for realizing that aesthetic. However, attempts to understand the toccatas as realizations of an autonomous instrumental form governed by abstract musical principles have been problematic at best. In this respect Frescobaldi's toccatas differ from the toccatas of Froberger and of later composers, which generally exhibit an orderly succession of clearly differentiated free and contrapuntal segments. Frescobaldi's own works in other genres also usually possess common formal principles; for example, his canzonas are structurally defined by the regular alternation of imitative sections in contrasting meters, and are musically unified by thematically related subjects.
