“New” toccatas by Giovanni Gabrieli in the Turin organ tablatures: issues of attribution
“New” toccatas by Giovanni Gabrieli in the Turin organ tablatures: issues of attribution

Summary/Abstract: Almost all of Giovanni Gabrieli’s keyboard output has been transmitted in Germansources, the most important of which are the German organ tablatures now held at theTurin National Library (I-Tn, Fondo Foà Giordano, Giordano 1-8, Foà 1–8). The lackof concordances and the way of transmission have led some scholars to consider manyof these compositions as doubtful or even spurious works, as in the case of a group oftoccatas in Giordano 2. This article examines the characteristics of the Turin tablaturesand the way of transmission of Gabrieli’s toccatas, in order to propose a reconsiderationof their exclusion. Due to the small number of free-style works whose attributionto Gabrieli is without question, the article proposes an analysis of the toccatasthrough the comparison with the larger corpus of Gabrieli’s works, both vocal andinstrumental: indeed, some of the Turin toccatas reveal strong similarities with latecompositions by Gabrieli. Through both a philological and an analytical approach, thearticle proposes adding the Turin toccatas to the corpus of Gabrieli’s authentic works.

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