avvertimenti

Performer's instructions or \"warnings to the reader\" — the prefaces included by Frescobaldi at the beginning of his major keyboard publications, most notably those in Toccate I (1615/1637) and the Capricci (1624). These prefaces are among the most detailed and important performance practice documents of the early Baroque period. The Avvertimenti to Toccate I (11 points in the 1616 edition, expanded in 1637) address: tempo management, the treatment of barlines, the arpeggiation of chords, the timing of ornaments, the relationship between sections of contrasting character, and the performer's discretion in choosing which passages to play. They are the essential companion to all Frescobaldi keyboard performance.

Read the Avvertimenti before practising any Frescobaldi toccata or capriccio. Key principles: (1) do not be enslaved by the barline — it exists for coordination, not metrical rigidity; (2) begin slowly and arpeggiated; (3) the end of a run before a cadence may be hurried slightly; (4) affetti sections require a slower, more expressive pace; (5) a cadence at the end of a section is a punctuation mark — allow time before continuing. These instructions were radical in 1615 and they remain the key to understanding why a Frescobaldi toccata is so different from everything that preceded it.