Toccate d'Intavolatura d'Organo. Libro Primo e Secondo, Rome 1598, 1604. [Facsimile]

Folio. Original publisher's green decorative printed wrappers with title label to upper and spine. 1f. (recto series title, verso blank), 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 1f. (textual commentary by Laura Alvini, printed on rectos only), 2ff. (facsimile of original title and dedication, printed on rectos only), 43, [i] (blank) pp.; 2ff. (facsimile of original title and dedication, printed on rectos only), 49, [i] (blank) pp. facsimile. Wrappers slightly worn, with small tear to upper margin of upper. Archivum Musicum Collana di testi rare 43. An Italian composer and publisher, Merulo "was the most gifted of a group of performer-composers who transformed European keyboard genres from simple pieces based on vocal models to idiomatic virtuoso works during the second half of the 16th century; also a prolific composer of madrigals, masses and motets in the mature Venetian style. . [He] wrote successfully in almost every musical genre of his era. His toccatas are of historical and musical significance for their alternating sections of contrasting treatment, in which imitative sections of steady, well-worked counterpoint give way to more static, homophonic sections, across which flow brilliant, rhapsodic, semi-improvisatory melodies and ornaments." Rebecca Edwards in Grove Music Online.…