Toccata Toccata Toccata (from Italian "toccare", literally, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple instruments (the opening of Claudio Monteverdi's opera "L'Orfeo" being a notable example). The form first appeared in the late Renaissance period. It originated in northern Italy. Several publications of the 1590s include toccatas, by composers such as Claudio Merulo, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli,
Toccata of the word toccata; and the first movement ("Schnelle halbe") of Paul Hindemith's fifth Kammermusik (a viola concerto) is written as a toccata. Another contemporary composer who has written many toccatas is Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927). In addition to several toccatas for organ, she has written three for piano (one, written in 1979, is frequently played), one for flute chorus, one for violin and piano, one for solo timpani and one for six mallet percussion. Russian jazz composer Nikolai Kapustin composed a toccatina as part of his Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40. The symphonic rock band Sky released an