toccata

American  

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

noun

Music.

plural

toccatas, toccate

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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Etymology

Origin of toccata

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

Example Sentences

Here it was clear in its hovering veils of sound, its quietly lyrical serenity and its toccata flurries, before a steady, triumphal ending.

From New York Times • Jun. 8, 2022

Adams joked in a conversation with the pianist Sarah Cahill before the premiere that “I Still Dance” is really a toccata with a disco beat.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 20, 2019

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

But in Bach's hands the toccata becomes one of the noblest and most plastic of forms.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various