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,
What Lies Before Us What Lies Before Us What Lies Before Us is a comedic play by Morris Panych. It takes place in the Canadian Rocky Mountains in 1884, where a railway survey team, Keating and Ambrose, and their Chinese servant Wing, are stranded after being abandoned by their wilderness guide. Keating and Ambrose argue over what to do - winter approaches and their food supply is dwindling. Ambrose eventually decides to go for help, but an avalanche injures his leg and traps them. Ambrose learns that Keating has contracted rabies from a squirrel, and that he himself has gangrene on his injured leg.