Michelangelo Rossi: Toccate e Correnti Nr.1-10 auf CD

Although the Italian composer, Michelangelo Rossi, was hailed in his lifetime as a violin virtuoso, a distinguished madrigalist and composer of two operas, his reputation is founded on his astonishingly original and technically advanced keyboard music. Rossi's Toccatas and Correnti combine Frescobaldi's mastery of counterpoint with the chromaticism and sudden modulations of Gesualdo and Sigismondo d'India, resulting in a very personal idiom. This is most clearly heard in Toccata Settima, the best known of Rossi's keyboard works, which has tremendous energy and drama, and concludes with an extraordinary passage of rising and falling chromatic scales.