Uploaded December 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
- Composer: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (April/May 1562 -- 16 October 1621)
- Performer: Glenn Gould
- Year of recording: 1964
Fantasia Contraria {in G dorian}, for keyboard, SwWV 270
A piece written in Sweelinck's favourite fantasia form, with his characteristic rhythmic augmentation of the material, which leads the fantasia to an energetic ending. One can only imagine Sweelinck improvising on the organ, writing these notes down, and this is what we can still listen to today!
This is music of the rarest kind, crystallized culmination on the keyboard of the centuries old art of polyphony, making the subsequent Baroque and Classical eras appear like perhaps a little light music in comparison.
- Composer: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (April/May 1562 -- 16 October 1621)
- Performer: Glenn Gould
- Year of recording: 1964
Fantasia Contraria {in G dorian}, for keyboard, SwWV 270
A piece written in Sweelinck's favourite fantasia form, with his characteristic rhythmic augmentation of the material, which leads the fantasia to an energetic ending. One can only imagine Sweelinck improvising on the organ, writing these notes down, and this is what we can still listen to today!
This is music of the rarest kind, crystallized culmination on the keyboard of the centuries old art of polyphony, making the subsequent Baroque and Classical eras appear like perhaps a little light music in comparison.
