Dale Carr | Capriccio sopra Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, by Girolamo Frescobaldi @dalecarr6361 | Uploaded January 2021 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Capriccio sopra Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, by Girolamo Frescobaldi, performed by
Dale Carr on the Schnitger organ in the Der Aa-Kerk, Groningen on 20 September, 1991 {not 1990}
Italian organs at the time of Frescobaldi were significantly different from those in northern Europe. An organ with three manuals and an independent pedal division, such as the instrument in the Der Aa-Kerk, would in Italy have been considered musically extravagant : most organs there had only one manual, and if they had pedals at all, these did not usually have their own pipes. Nor were reeds and mixtures a normal phenomenon.
Italian music benefitted from the greatest possible clarity of sound ; this clarity was combined with great intensity and power, and with the capability of sounding at once relaxed-vocal and sharply articulated. These qualities are substantially present in the old pipes of the Der Aa-Kerk organ, and although the sound has no Italian character, it does have lots of character, and that is more important.
Capriccio is not much more in principle than a “fleeting thought”. In Italian music the name usually refers to a work composed in a polyphonic style, on a particular subject (= soggetto). The subject is treated in sections with contrasting tempi and/or time-signatures. The transitions are sometimes in a non-polyphonic, toccata-like style.
Inganno means “deception” or “misleading”. The deception lies in substituting for an expected tone of a soggetto a different tone (not just a chromatic inflection). There were 3 hexachords, the “natural” beginning on c, the “hard” beginning on g, and the “soft” beginning on f and using b-flat. This gave the composer 2 alternatives as inganni for any given note of the soggetto. I have pointed out several inganni near the beginning of the piece in annotations to the running score; the interested listener will be able to find many more. I am convinced that these technical devices in the works of Frescobaldi serve a musical purpose.
The performance used only the rugpositief of the organ, which offers more than enough variety of tone-colors for the work.
Capriccio sopra Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, by Girolamo Frescobaldi, performed by
Dale Carr on the Schnitger organ in the Der Aa-Kerk, Groningen on 20 September, 1991 {not 1990}
Italian organs at the time of Frescobaldi were significantly different from those in northern Europe. An organ with three manuals and an independent pedal division, such as the instrument in the Der Aa-Kerk, would in Italy have been considered musically extravagant : most organs there had only one manual, and if they had pedals at all, these did not usually have their own pipes. Nor were reeds and mixtures a normal phenomenon.
Italian music benefitted from the greatest possible clarity of sound ; this clarity was combined with great intensity and power, and with the capability of sounding at once relaxed-vocal and sharply articulated. These qualities are substantially present in the old pipes of the Der Aa-Kerk organ, and although the sound has no Italian character, it does have lots of character, and that is more important.
Capriccio is not much more in principle than a “fleeting thought”. In Italian music the name usually refers to a work composed in a polyphonic style, on a particular subject (= soggetto). The subject is treated in sections with contrasting tempi and/or time-signatures. The transitions are sometimes in a non-polyphonic, toccata-like style.
Inganno means “deception” or “misleading”. The deception lies in substituting for an expected tone of a soggetto a different tone (not just a chromatic inflection). There were 3 hexachords, the “natural” beginning on c, the “hard” beginning on g, and the “soft” beginning on f and using b-flat. This gave the composer 2 alternatives as inganni for any given note of the soggetto. I have pointed out several inganni near the beginning of the piece in annotations to the running score; the interested listener will be able to find many more. I am convinced that these technical devices in the works of Frescobaldi serve a musical purpose.
The performance used only the rugpositief of the organ, which offers more than enough variety of tone-colors for the work.
