This is the third of the six toccatas in the Libro Quarto of 1656, a collections of keyboard pieces which Froberger assembled for Ferdinand III the Hapsburg Emperor in Vienna. Froberger's toccatas were best known for their quirky improvisatory freedom in a style that became known later as the stylus fantasticus. Other composers such as Matthias Weckmann, Dietrich Buxtehude, Louis Couperin, and Johann Adam Reincken modeled bits of their own improvisatory style after the things they saw in Froberger's toccatas. This particular toccata begins and ends with freaky and almost spastic passagework in the stylus fantasticus. The toccata also includes two sections of imitative counterpoint separated by a brief foray back into the stylus fantasticus. Both imitative sections are in double counterpoint tying them together, but they are not otherwise thematically related as is so often the case in the toccatas of the Libro Secondo of 1649.

© Andrus Madsen, Rovi