The Frescobaldi Thematic Catalogue Online

What’s New on (and About) the Site

We have added this What’s New page to inform visitors of recent noteworthy additions and revisions, and major work in progress or planned, as well as serving as a blog about FTCO.

Added on 1 December 2021

• The big news is the move from Duke University to JSCM Instrumenta, more about which you can read on The  New JSCM Instrumenta Edition page. We have been using the move to reexamine and update many elements of the database. As always, we are open to your suggestions for further additions or revisions.
•  Citations of the FTCO and use of the F numbers to identify Frescobaldi’s compositions are becoming increasingly widespread. Links to the site are now found on the Frescobaldi pages of the Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian Wikipedia. F numbers are provided for Frescobaldi’s works on Grove Music Online, IMSLP, RISM (255 entries), the list of compositions on Wikipedia, and MusicBrainz.org. The latter provides a handy  table of the compositions, ordered by F number, and including links to performers who have recorded the work. RISM also presents a news item on the new FTCO edition.

Added on 16 November 2019

• We welcome the appearance of the fourth volume in Christopher Stembridge’s new Bärenreiter edition of Frescobaldi’s keyboard works. The volumes of this edition are organized according to the chronology of the original publications, beginning in Volume I with those first issued in 1615 (the Recercari, e canzoni and the Toccate…Libro primo). The newly published volume contains the last editions published during Frescobaldi’s lifetime: the Fiori Musicali (1635) and the Aggiunta from Toccate…Libro Primo (1637). As with the earlier volumes, the prefatory material and critical report cover much valuable new ground as well as interesting insights on the sources and their contents.

Added on 30 July 2019

• Following up on my post of 1 March, the mysterious purchaser of that Florence manuscript has come forward and, most generously, shared the results of his preliminary research on this discovery. He also gave me the opportunity to examine the volume. The current owner turns out to be the extraordinary harpsichordist-scholar-collector, Benjamin Katz. Mr. Katz gave permission to enter information from his manuscript (which I have designated as the “Katz MS”) on FTCO, and to post here the following description: It contains 22 keyboard pieces, of which 13 are known from Frescobaldi’s two books of toccatas and from the Fiori musicali, most in complete form, but a few with substantial and curious modifications. Two other pieces are attributed to Frescobaldi: a previously unknown corrente (F 15.62) and a canzona credited in several other sources to Ercole Pasquini,(F 15.63)––as mentioned in my earlier post. In addition, the manuscript contains four works attributed to Domenico Anglesi, (c1610 – 1674), a corrente attributed to Falconieri (Andrea?, 1585-1656), and two untitled anonymous pieces. According to representatives of the auction house, the manuscript had always been in possession of the same family, the name of whom they were not permitted to reveal; this probably accounts for its unusually good condition. Answers to several questions raised by this important source will require further research. This coming November 9th (2019), Mr. Katz will perform several of the newly discovered works by Frescobaldi, Anglesi, and Falconieri, along with other items from his collection, in a concert in Duke University’s Rare Music Series, with participation of the celebrated soprano Julianne Baird.
• The catalogue of the auction of May 9-11, 2019 by Zizzka & Lacher of Munich Germany lists a manuscript claimed to be “the earliest transmission, perhaps with contributions by the composer himself, of Frescobaldi’s motet for double choir In te Domine speravi” [my translation]. Apparently, no satisfactory bid was received on this item, and the manuscript remains in the hands of Zizzka & Lacher. The catalogue includes reproductions of the pages of the manuscript, along with a lengthy and not entirely accurate commentary. The reproductions show that we are dealing with a 17th-century set of parts for F 16.73, until now only known from a late 19th-century copy (F 16.73b). Notwithstanding the catalogue’s claims, none of the four hands contributing to this manuscript has been identified as belonging to either Frescobaldi or to someone who worked with him, although one of the hands show up in a source associated with his circle. The manuscript formerly belonged to Franz Xaver Haberl, one of Frescobaldi’s early biographers, who believed it to be an autograph and who seems to have been responsible for the 19th-century copy. It provides a few features missing from the previously known version: it is pitched a whole tone higher, and therefore lacks the double-flat key signature that formerly had given ground for suspicion, since that signature was never encountered in any of the early Frescobaldi sources; it provides a Bassus ad organum part for each choir, whereas the more recent copy includes no continuo part; and those Bassus ad organum parts include chant intonations on “In te domine speravi,” presumably sung before the chorus enter with “in tua justitia.” The seventeenth-century source has been catalogued as F 16.73a, and in view of this (re)discovery, Frescobaldi’s authorship status has been changed form “doubtful” to “probable.”

Added on 1 March 2019

• On 5 February 2019 a bound manuscript described as “Raccolta di toccate, canzoni, arie, correnti ecc. per tastiera [Collection of toccatas, canzonas, arias, correntes, etc. for keyboard]” was sold by auction by Gonnelli of Florence. The purchaser is not identified (if anyone has information on this, please let us know!). A page from the auction catalogue show the first part of a work with the caption “Canzona del Frescobaldi.” No information is provided on the remaining content of the volume other than the list of genres in the title, but the photograph displayed in the catalogue suggests it to be a substantial volume. According to the description, the manuscript is not dated but stems from the 17th century. The displayed composition does not appear in the FTCO, but is well-known as a composition usually credited to Ercole Pasquini; it is widely distributed both in early sources and in modern anthologies [Kenyon N. 21]. We believe that a case supporting the attribution to Frescobaldi can possibly be made, pending further analysis. In any case, we will enter the work in the FTCO. Many thanks to Prof. Darbellay for notifying us about this newly surfaced manuscript! We understand that another manuscript with a Frescobaldi attribution will soon be offered by a German auction house, and we hope to provide further details here before long.

Added on 28 February 2019

• The publication in 2017 of the thirteenth and last volume of the Opere complete, the complete works of Girolamo Frescobaldi marks a milestone in musicological scholarship. The first volume, presenting two Masses for eight voices attributed to the composer (F 1.1 and F 1.2), appeared more than forty years ago. Since that time, twelve volumes have been issued at fairly steady intervals, even if to many it seemed like a snail’s pace––at times one wondered whether the gigantic undertaking would ever be completed. But completed it now is, thanks to the dedication and persistence of its publisher, Suvini Zamboni and the many distinguished musicologists who contributed to the project, none more so than Etienne Darbellay, Professor Emeritus of the University of Geneva. Darbellay was responsible, by himself or as collaborator, for more than half of the volumes, including the second volume, published in 1975, and the last volume, published 42 years later. This volume, containing the works never published during the composer’s lifetime––many appearing for the first time in print––presented formidable editorial and organizational problems, and can only be regarded as a stellar achievement. It will take some time before we are able to enter all the references to the new volume in the FTCO database, but we hope soon to make available a concordance between the works included in the edition and the corresponding F number, which will enable our users to locate works both in the edition and in the FTCO.

Added on 25 October 2017

• We have added three adaptations by Jan Dismas Zelenka of movements from the Fiori Musicali. Two sections of Zelenka’s Miserere, ZWV 57 (Miserere II and Sicut erat) are based on the Recercar con obligo del basso come apare, F 12.32; the Salve Regina, ZWV 137 is based on the Canzon quarti toni dopo il post Comune, F 12.33, and the Salve Regina, ZWV 141 is based on the Recercar dopo il Credo, F 12.42. They have been entered into the catalogue as F 19.16H, F 19.17H, and F 19.18H, respectively. In each case Zelenka basically follows Frescobaldi’s score, but breaks up note-values to accommodate the text, adds a continuo part, and introduces accidentals and other small modification in accordance with the taste of his time. In his own manuscript copy of the Fiori (Dresden 98) there are a several autograph insertions of incipits of the texts to which he was to adapt the corresponding passages. Our attention to these interesting, but little-known Zelenka adaptions was drawn by a reference to Zelenka’s Miserere in the Preface to Christopher Stembridge’s edition of the Fiori, in the fourth volume of Frescobaldi’s keyboard works forthcoming with Bärenreiter, which the editor had kindly made available to us. The adaptations have also been added to The Frescobaldi Legacy.

Added on 18 February 2017

• Frederick Hammond, author of the standard reference on Frescobaldi’s life & works [Hammond (1983); revised Italian ed.: Hammond (2002)] is working on a third, much extended version to be published online: Hammond (2016). A preview can be seen at Girolamo Frescobaldi: An Extended Biography, which includes three of the projected nineteen chapters, along with the table of contents and a Documentary Appendix with text of letters, prefaces to the original editions (with English translations), inventory of instruments, and much other interesting material. When completed, this will be a matchless resource of everything Frescobaldi!
• We have added a listing of the first complete modern edition by Cristina Pisano of the recently discovered Frescobaldi autograph Paris 64, along with page references for the individual pieces (F13.15 to 13.29). An editon of the content of the manuscript will of course also be included in the forthcoming volume of the Opere Complete containing the works surviving in manuscript. It will no doubt be interesting to compare the different transcriptions of Frescobaldi’s often difficult to decypher handwriting.

Added on 18 July 2016

• Three short preludes attributed to Frescobaldi that were contributed to the IMSLP Petrucci Music Library <imslp.org> by Jürgen Knuth, have been entered as F 17.46, F 17.47, F 17.48. Their source is not known, but they probably derive from a late seventeenth-century verset collection and almost certainly are spurious.

Added on 15 February 2016

• Page references to Vol. XI of the Opere complete (2014), the final volume in the series based on works originally published in Frescobaldi’s lifetime, have been entered. It contains Frescobaldi’s Liber secundus diversarum modulationem (Rome, 1627), a large collection of motets for one to four voices with bassus ad organum. The only surviving copy, in the British Library, lacks the part book with second cantus and altus parts, as a result of which 17 of the 31 pieces are incomplete. The edition includes a reconstruction of the missing parts by the editors, Marco Della Sciucca and Marina Toffetti.

Added on 26 September 2015

• Additional information has been added regarding the Novello MS (formerly listed as Osborn MS), including the presence of attributions and dates, which points to an origin in Brussels c. 1650 (see Dirksen [2001]). The manuscript contains a fragment from Canzona seconda from the Second Book of Toccatas (F 3.14), and is therefore one of the earliest sources for this publication from Northwestern Europe.

Added on 28 August 2015

• A new source containing several Frescobaldi attributions has been added to the database with the short title “Innsbruck.” The manuscript survives in private hands, but a photocopy from c. 1980 can be seen in the Innsbruck Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum with the signature M12416. The MS appears to have been compiled by the organist Elias de Silva (c. 1665-1732) some time after 1702, and also includes works by Johann Jacob Fischer, Froberger, Kerll, Krieger, Merula, Murschhauser, Bernardo Pasquini, Speth, Steingriebler, and Johann Jacob Walter. Siegbert Rampe dates the manuscript to after 1702. An edition by Ernst Kubitschek of all the unpublished works is forthcoming in the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich. The Frescobaldi works include two canzonas from Toccate II, four canzonas from the Fiori musicali, and one capriccio from Froberger’s 1658 autograph (Capriccio V), entitled “Canzon” in the manuscript and attributed to Frescobaldi, as well as two works that thus far have not been identified in other sources: a lengthy, sectional “Phantasia” in the manner of a Frescobaldi capriccio (F 16.75)––although stylistically not quite convincing––and a short verset (17.45) for which the attribution appears rather implausible. I would like to thank Dr. Frank Gratl for his assistance during my visit to the Tiroler Landesmuseum and Christopher Stembridge for sharing his transcriptions, notes, and ideas regarding the manuscript.
• We welcome the appearance of the 1624 Capricci volume in Stembridge’s new Bärenreiter edition of Frescobaldi’s keyboard works, truly a Frescobaldi edition for the twenty-first century, and we have added page references to this edition in the catalogue.

Added on 12 October 2014

• The F numbers introduced by the FTCO are gradually becoming used elsewhere. They appear in the recent revision (July 2014) of the “Girolamo Frescobaldi” article and Works List in Grove Music Online, and also by most items in the Frescobaldi Compositions list of the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library.

Added on 9 October 2014

• We are grateful to Bob van Asperen for having pointed out that the theme of the Balletto F 13.22 in the Frescobaldi autograph Paris 64 resembles that of Froberger’s variation set Die Maÿerin (FbWV 606) and of Johann Adam Reincken’s Schweiget mir von Weibern nehmen. More details are given in the entry for this piece. The apparent connection of a tune in a Frescobaldi manuscript with a presumably German song set by Froberger is interesting.
• Van Asperen also drew our attention to the liner notes for his recording of the Durezze in the Oldham MS (F 15.29), in which he makes a case that the author migth be Giovanni De Macque, rather than Frescobaldi. We made a note of this in our comments to the piece, but decided not to change the listed attribution, “possibly by Frescobaldi.”
• A recently issued CD featuring the pianist Sandro Ivo Bartoli, The Frescobaldi Legacy, Brilliant Classics 9417 (2012), presents six piano adaptations listed on our page with the same title, The Frescobaldi Legacy, as well as two adaptations, by the early twentieth-century virtuoso pianists Harold Bauer and Samuil Feinberg that had not been listed there, but that now have been added.

Added on 26 June 2014

• As noted in our entry of 1 April 2012 below, some of the scribal identifications made by Christine Jeanneret and the resulting attributions have been disputed by Claudio Annibaldi; see Annibaldi (2012-1) and (2012-2). Responses to these two articles have been published by Frederick Hammond (2012), by Jeanneret (2013), and by Étienne Darbellay (2013), but the matter is far from settled. We have noted these disagreements in the comments to the disputed manuscripts, and have changed the attributions from “probable” to “disputed,” pending further study.

Added on 14 December 2013

• A new entry, F19.08H, has been added to the “homage” pieces: a “Courante Baldescha” that appears in a collection of pieces for Spanish (baroque) guitar by Antonio Carbonchi, published in Florence in 1640 and notated––unusual for Italian guitar music––in French tablature. Although no specific work by Frescobaldi has been identified as model, several phrases are reminiscent of correnti by Frescobaldi, and we may therefore be dealing with a work deliberately written “in the style of Frescobaldi.” Dinko Fabris drew attention to the possible connection of this work to Frescobaldi; thanks are also due to Gary Boye for assistance with the transcription of the tablature.
• Work continues on the reformatting of many examples, which due to a software problem ended up with oversized staves. It may take some time before all examples are converted, but in the process we are also able to make occasional small corrections.

Added on 1 October 2013

• A major update to the “Frescobaldi” article in the New Grove Online has been prepared, which will include F numbers in the works list and in a few references in the text.
• The third volume of the new Bärenreiter Frescobaldi edition, edited by Christopher Stembridge with the collaboration of Kenneth Gilbert, has been issued. It presents the text of TOCCATE II, with a comprehensive critical report on all known copies of both the 1627 and 1637 editions. Page references will be added to the entries corresponding to the pieces in this volume (F 3).
• Several sources have been added to the database, none of major importance: Brussels II.3326, Osborn (Yale), Oxford 258, Paris D 4065, Paris 819-2, and Trent M1092.
• The motets F 13.36, 13.37, and 13.38 are now attributed to Virgilio Mazzocchi (see 1 April 2012, below).

Added on 19 August 2012

• We inserted additional information, sources, and editions for the three fugues F 18.06S, 18.07S, and 18.08S by Gottlieb Muffat, misattributed to Frescobaldi.

Added on 27 April 2012

• A hitherto unknown early source for the Fantasie (1608) has been added to the sources database. Wolfgang Schönsleder’s musical treatise Architectonice musices universalis, published in 1631 in Ingolstadt, was brought to our attention by Eric Bianchi of Fordham University for its several references to Frescobaldi. The treatise includes fifteen compositional examples credited to him, which have been identified as excerpts from Fantasias 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, and 10. To our knowledge these are the earliest examples of Frescobaldi’s music to appear in print north of the Alps, although copies from the Fantasie do appear in several early North-European manuscripts.

Added on 1 April 2012

• In a brief article forthcoming in the February 2012 issue of Early Music, Claudio Annibaldi disputes some of Christine Jeanneret’s identifications of Frescobaldi’s handwriting and authorship. He has promised a more detailed discussion, to be published in the journal Il Saggiatore Musicale. Annibaldi’s claims will affect a number of entries in this catalogue. Among the more important of the disputed identifications are the hands in Barb. Lat. 4181 and Barb. Lat. 4182 (and, by implication, of the author of their contents), and the authorship of the motets F 13.36, 13.37, and 13.38, which according to Annibaldi are the work of Virgilio Mazzocchi. We have added references to Annibaldi’s article, but have decided not to alter the status in the catalogue of the works in question, pending study of the arguments presented in his forthcoming studies. If we decide that the assignment of those works is no longer tenable, we will modify the entries accordingly, but the works will not be dropped from the catalogue (see What’s Included). Similarly, their F numbers will not be altered, except for the possible addition of the suffix S (see F Numbers).
• We encountered more detailed information on on the genesis Frescobaldi’s most frequently performed––if spurious––composition, the Toccata for violoncello and piano (F18.05S), in a DMA dissertation on Gaspar Cassadó by Nathaniel J. Chaitkin, accessible online at http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/cassado/chapter2.htm. Appropriate references have been added to the composition entry.
• We continue to add new items to the bibliographies of editions and literature and to correct typographical and other errors.

Added in November 2011

• Two variation sets have been added to the Compositions: F15.60, Sonata prima [Partite sopra la Romanesca], and F 15.61, Sonata seconda [Partite sopra la Monica]. Both are found in Turin Foa 8, which also contains copies of Frescobaldi’s published variations sets, including those on the Romanesca, F 2.13, and on la Monica, F 2.14. Both “sonatas” include variations that have elements in common with the published sets, but since they appear anonymously in the MS, they have drawn little attention.

• Thanks to the generosity of Maestro Marcello Garofalo, who loaned us a photocopy of the Garofalo MS, we were able to enter all the incipits, page numbers, etc. for this MS. (Present location of the MS is unknown.)

• An incipit has been added to F 15.29, the “Duresse de frescobaldi” in the Oldham MS. Bruce Gustafson kindly provided us with a transcription of this elusive work.

• On the F Numbers information page we have added the following statement: The F numbers will never be changed, and hence they can be used to uniquely identify a work on concert programs, recordings, new editions, etc.

• We are gradually converting all incipits to a uniform format, including notation software (Sibelius–some older incipits were set in Wolfgang), staff size, and editorial policies with respect to accidentals.