Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643); ITA

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643) was born in Ferrara and became the most celebrated Italian keyboard composer of the early seventeenth century. He studied in the cultivated musical environment of the Este court, probably with Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and by his early twenties had established himself as an exceptional organist. After a period in the Low Countries, Frescobaldi returned to Italy and in 1608 was appointed organist of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, a prestigious position he held, with interruptions, for most of his life. He also served the Medici court in Florence from 1628 to 1634. His reputation spread widely through both his performances and the publication of carefully prepared collections of keyboard music.

Frescobaldi transformed the expressive possibilities of keyboard music, bringing unusual freedom, rhetorical intensity, and harmonic daring to forms such as the toccata, ricercar, canzona, capriccio, and variation. His two books of Toccate e partite explore flexible tempo and sharply contrasting affects, while Fiori musicali, a collection of liturgical organ music published in 1635, became one of the most influential keyboard publications of the Baroque era. His Capricci and Ricercari et canzoni franzese demonstrate formidable contrapuntal invention. Frescobaldi’s works were studied by later composers across Europe, including Johann Jakob Froberger and J. S. Bach, and helped establish traditions of expressive keyboard writing that endured throughout the Baroque period.

###

Read biography at allmusic.com.