Georg Muffat - Toccata Tertia from Apparatus Musico-Organisticus [1690]

Georg Muffat (1653 - 1704) was a German musician, born in France to a Scottish father and a French mother. His organ music, published in "Apparatus Musico-Organisticus" is unique in that it exhibits a sort of self-aware cosmopolitanism, in that Muffat intentionally combines musical ideas from various national styles (i.e. Italian, French and German). Muffat refers to this curious innovation as his "Mixed Style."

This third toccata features elements typical of the Italian and South German toccata idiom, such as sustained chords with diminutions over top, and the jarring ribattuta di gola ornament. We also see several components of the work that are characteristic of the French style, such as port-de-voix ornaments and sections in lilting triple meter.

It is only tentatively that one might make any kind of assertion about the defining characteristics of the zeitgeist of a given historical era, as our ideas about the past are inescapably shaped by the distorting lens of our modern world through which we view it.

This being said, I am inclined to view the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as a time characterized by curiosity, with said curiosity going along with an appetite for variety and contrast. Muffat's works certainly exemplify this notion with their multiple contrasting sections and many curious and shocking moments. This finds some visual resonance in the "Historia Naturalis," a natural history treatise from 1657 by the Scottish-Polish physician Jan Jonston. The tome is full of highly detailed illustrations of both real and imaginary creatures, once again epitomizing this concept of curiosity and variety. The contemporary concept of a "Wunderkammer" or cabinet of curosities also is worth mentioning in relation to this idea. These were cabinets or in some cases entire rooms of unusual, expensive or exotic objects, often completely miscellaneous in nature. These were often owned by academics or noblemen, with the purpose of demonstrating wealth or learnedness through a collection of fascinating objects. Each of these objects is akin to the various aural "objects" we encounter in Muffat's toccatas, such as a sudden change in meter or musical texture, or a startling dissonance or ornament. These things catch the ear just as an exotic shell or an illustration of a menacing beast might catch the eye.

The first image is a portrait of Georg Muffat himself, and all other images are taken from Jonston's Historiae Naturalis.

Recorded on the 1981 John Brombaugh organ of Fairchild Chapel, Oberlin, OH.
Quarter Syntonic Comma Meantone temperament, subsemitones, short octave, A = 465.