harpsichord:
Aria detta la frescobalda (1627)
Toccata VII (1615)
Toccata IX (1615)
Partite sopra l’Aria di Follia (1616)
Ancidetemi pur d’Archadelt passagiato (1627)
Toccata VII (1627)
Balletto
Corrente & Passachagli (1637)

organ:
Toccata V sopra i pedali per l’organo
e senza (1627)
Toccata IV Per l’organo da sonarsi alla levatione (1627)
Canzona IV (1627)
Capriccio di durezze (1624)
Toccata Avanti Il Recercar & Recercar Cromatico post il Credo (1635)
Toccata Avanti Il Recercar
Recercar Cromatico post il Credo
Toccata per le levatione (Messa Delli Apostoli, 1635)
Bergamasca

Girolamo Frescobaldi can justifiably be considered as the grand master of harpsichord and organ music during the Italian Baroque. His toccatas are impressive firework displays of emotion and untrammelled imagination and full of effects and affects which repeatedly confirm the composer’s reputation as a great artist of improvisation. Frescobaldi was a master of the so-called stylus fantasticus which permitted great freedom in tempo and structure and demanded an interpretation which would give the impression that the artist was genuinely improvising as he performed. Frescobaldi not only displayed great artistry in his toccatas and other free forms, but also great virtuosity in (contrapuntal, thematic and metricalrhythmical) variation forms as demonstrated by his partitas, suites, dances and capriccios.

As was the normal contemporary practice, Frescobaldi’s compositions were intended generally for “keyboard instruments” and only rarely do we observe the specification of a particular instrument, e.g. for the organ. In his recording, Luca Guglielmi performs on the harpsichord (a copy of an anonymous Italian instrument from the 17th century by Michele Barchi) and also on the historical organ dating back to 1750 built by Giacomo Filippo Landesio in Luserna San Giovanni in Turin