Wendy Hiscocks: Toccata (1983)

Abstract

"The toccata is almost exclusively a keyboard genre. From its origins in the sixteenth century it evolved during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a popular, virtuosic form often with contrasted freely rhapsodic and fugal sections. Classical and romantic composers generally neglected the form, preferring its more lyrical counterparts, the fantasia and prelude. The re-emergence of the toccata in the twentieth century is due in part to Debussy, whose Toccata (from Pour le piano) set the tone for later manifestations of the genre: a rapid tempo, the use of arpeggio patterns, and melodies picked out as if randomly against repeated notes and ostinato figures. Hiscocks's Toccata preserves both the impromptu and the virtuosic qualities of the genre. Rhythmically the work is free, the basic unit of a semiquaver appearing throughout in groups of irregular lengths. This apparent randomness of rhythm gives the melody an unpredictable quality in keeping with the toccata's improvisatory origins. The texture is predominantly linear and monophonic, the rapid repetition of notes around the melody conveying only an approximation of harmony. The composer neatly unifies this potentially rambling rondo structure by means of intervallic relationships. The fourths, fifths and octaves of the recurring motive are exploited also in the three contrasting episodes. Throughout the work, augmented and diminished variants of these intervals are heard, colouring the open intervals and adding vibrancy and momentum. The note B flat is a continuous reference point, against which other tones are explored. The range of possibilities is extended first in an upwards and then in a downwards direction." -- Deborah Crisp