libro di
Toccate, Canzoni, Versi d'hinni, Magnificat, Gagliarde, Correnti e altre Partite d'Intavolatura di cembalo e organo di Girolamo Frescobaldi. Con Privilegio. In Roma, con licenza de' Superiori. 1627. Da Nicolo Borbone._]
For us the _recercare_ possess an interest of another kind; Frescobaldi had introduced an innovation in creating the initial form of the fugue, unconsciously guided by the necessity of establishing the modern tonality which forced itself upon his senses; particularly in the Ricercatas and in certain of the Toccatas he contrives to become master of a new resource, which had suggested this tonality to him: the chromatic scale.
This enables him to discover new harmonies, although he is sometimes led astray, and to modulate with endless freedom. The dissonance is no longer a "necessary evil" to him; it is an important factor in new effects. With his absolute command of the instrument and his marvellous facility of improvisation, this ability to distance his contemporaries in a field which up to this time no one had had the courage to explore, places the organist of St. Peter's in a position closely allied to that occupied by the Cantor of Leipzig; at least considering what Frescobaldi was able to accomplish in his time, obliged to create a new language for himself, as it were; and he sometimes lost his way, in propounding to himself problems which were insoluble in the existing stage of musical advancement.
Possibly Frescobaldi realized this impossibility of a personal
## participation in something which he foresaw, as yet only in a
confused way, but whose advent he regarded as a certainty. For since he could neither ordain a "music of the future," to use an expression already more or less familiar, nor define its fundamental principles, he was often obliged to deny himself any part in even the development of his art, confined as he was to the limits of obsolete rules; did he also conclude that his too fertile imagination would lead him into extravagances, and did he voluntarily restrain this creative faculty, confining it to the laborious construction of too subtle enigmas? Certain of his compositions suggest such a condition of mind; above all, the _Recercar con obligo di cantare la Quinta Parte senza toccarla_ (_Fiori musicali_, p. 84).[16]
[Footnote 16: Ricercata, of which the fifth part must be sung, without being played.]
At the head of this composition stands the following motive, like a motto:
[Music]
upon which, moreover, is based the entire Ricercata.
But this piece is in duple time, and this fifth part is in 3/1, the _tempus perfectum_ of mensurable music, indicated by a circle.[17] Where could the entrances be effected? This the performer must decide for himself, for Frescobaldi never did anything to assist him in his decision; "_intenda mi chi può, che m'intend' io_" ("let him comprehend me who can, I understand myself"), he tells us. We find the same challenge at the beginning of one of his caprices, the tenth in the first book[18] (pp. 77-86).
[Footnote 17: The circle, possessing neither beginning nor end, conveys the impression of the infinite, of perfection. This perfection is attributed to the number _three_; according to Franco of Cologne, the chief number, because of the Trinity, "_vera et summa perfectio_." (_Musica et cantus mensurabilis_, Chap. IV.)]
[Footnote 18: _Il primo