TOCCATAS: SPIELFIGUREN, VIRTUOSITY AND NARRATIVITY
TOCCATAS: SPIELFIGUREN, VIRTUOSITY AND NARRATIVITY

Summary/Abstract: The term Spielfiguren was used by Heinrich Besseler (1956) and others to refer to figurations which are performatively idiomatic to a particular musical instrument. Piano toccatas from the 19th century onwards often feature specific pianistic figures to generate their motoric character (for example repeated notes), simultaneously shaping the musical substance. With reference to the toccata genre and Alfredo Casella's Toccata Op. 6 in particular, this article suggests ways in which signification may be thought to operate from contrasting viewpoints. From the perspective of the skilled pianist, the toccata's printed page may be regarded as symbolic of (and the sound in performance indexical to) a particular type of engagement with the keyboard, thus conveying corporeal (or haptic) signification. From the point of view of both work and performer, toccatas are usually virtuoso pieces which tax the pianist's playing mechanism, thereby augmenting the importance of the performer and reversing the usual "work > performance" paradigm. The perceived role of virtuosity in referencing death, the macabre and the sublime is also considered. From the point of view of the work itself, a toccata's tendency to depend on a single Spielfigur means that it will be topically limited and will not generally bespeak a complex narrative structure. However, toccatas are often cumulative with executive difficulties and dynamic intensity building as the end approaches, a feature that may be experienced as teleological, providing another, less self-referential, type of signification.

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