The third volume, titled "Frische Clavier Früchte", contains six sonatas modelled on Italian chamber sonatas. According to music authors Milton Cross and David Ewen, the work's publication is an "important event in musical history" since it is one of the earliest serious attempts at composing works for keyboard instruments besides the organ. A wide variety of forms and textures is employed: even the opening movements range from toccata-like miniatures to full-fledged chaconnes. Kuhnau's approach to the episodes of the many fugues of this collection has been called "perhaps his primary contribution to the historical development of fugue as an extended form" by one scholar. "Frische Clavier Früchte" was Kuhnau's most popular work in his lifetime, reprinted five times (including one posthumous publication).