toccata

American  

[tuh-kah-tuh, tawk-kah-tah] / təˈkɑ tə, tɔkˈkɑ tɑ /

noun

Music.

toccatas, plural toccate plural

1. a composition in the style of an improvisation, for the piano, organ, or other keyboard instrument, intended to exhibit the player's technique.

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toccata British  

/ təˈkɑːtə /

noun

1. a rapid keyboard composition for organ, harpsichord, etc, dating from the baroque period, usually in a rhythmically free style

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• toccate
  plural
• toccatas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of toccata

1715–25; < Italian: “touched,” feminine past participle of toccare touch

Example Sentences

The pulse-quickening toccata that opens Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” is essentially the overture of the earliest opera still widely performed.

From New York Times • Oct. 20, 2017

“The BBC would come by and see what’s going on with the student body. I’d written a toccata in the style of Khachaturian, and they said, ‘Oh really?

From The New Yorker • May 3, 2017

During an early scene in the film, Blanca entertains the guests with a performance of a sprightly toccata by the 18th-century composer Paradisi.

From New York Times • Jul. 29, 2016

J. Reilly Lewis will lead the ensemble and organist Todd Fickley in a cantata, toccata and fugue.

From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2016

They seize in their hands a gong to which they give repeated blows with the third finger, snapping it with the thumb, thus making a kind of toccata with it.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XLIII, 1670-1700 by Various