For as much as Fabio Bonizzoni is drawn to the splendours of Baroque music for voices and orchestra – as demonstrated through his award-winning recordings with La Risonanza – his keyboard-playing instincts are constantly urging him to tackle masterpieces of the keyboard repertory. Most recently having applied his musical insight and virtuosity to Bach’s 'Die Kunst der Fuge', Bonizzoni now pits himself against another, albeit earlier, Baroque master in Girolamo Frescobaldi.

Frequently-cited as being as important for keyboard music as Monteverdi was for vocal and dramatic fare, the genius of the Ferrara-born Frescobaldi was amply recognised when working in Rome and Florence – periods when he published (and revised) the two books of toccatas (but including canzonas and partitas or variations sets) recorded by Bonizzoni here. Frescobaldi’s toccatas allow for, and draw from Bonizzoni, great interpretative flexibility, calling for rhythmic freedom, not to say drama and emotion. Indeed, Bonizzoni, clearly mindful of the new demands of the seconda prattica in Frescobaldi’s time, likens the toccatas to being madrigals without words: poetry lies at the heart of his performances.

This new recording from Glossa has Bonizzoni playing on a splendid modern copy of an Italian Baroque harpsichord and on the idiosyncratic organ of the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua. Along the way, Bonizzoni has puzzled out, and describes in the booklet, how best to draw out the sound appropriate for Frescobaldi’s music from this mysterious instrument.