Toccate d'intavolatura ... No.5, Partita No.6. sopra l'Aria di Follia

On top of his duties as principal organist for St. Peter's, Frescobaldi also rented his musical services to many private employers. During the period from 1608 - 1612, his main private benefactor was the cardinal Enzo Bentivoglio, in whose home he not only led the rest of Bentivoglio's private musical retinue but also gave solo performances at the harpsichord. His playing was evidently impressive enough to get him into various trysts with the women of the household and, in that capacity, eventually cost him his job. It was in such circumstances of glowing private exhibitionism that Frescobaldi perfected the improvisatory skills that inform his compositions, particularly the harpsichord partitas. The Partite sopra l'aria is a set of improvisatory variations on well-known musical material, a famous folk tune called "La follia." "La follia" is essentially a short bass line that allowed the nimble fingers and curious mind of one like Frescobaldi great room for play. His use of "La follia" points back to the works of predecessors Mayone and Trabaci, who also based keyboard works upon it, and to many Neapolitan composers. But Frescobaldi far surpasses all of them in the harmonic scope and richness of his music, in his use of instrumental color, and in sheer imaginative brilliance. Mayone's and Trabaci's music, important as it was in its moment, is wooden and flat in comparison. Partite sopra is constructed in an AAB sectional format, with the B section being the climax, the most difficult to perform and expressively the richest. Within these larger sections, the music is chopped into short, neatly defined phrases that each present a particular reflection on the musical material. The rhythm is light and dance-like, with dotted rhythms and triplets playfully stemming the flow of quirky, even mischievous chord melodies. The musical texture gradually opens up to foreshadow the splendid conclusion. The B section then begins with the most stripped-down cantabile part of the entire partite before blossoming out into long garlands of scales over chord rhythms derived from those heard so prominently in the A sections.

© Donato Mancini, Rovi