by Paul Collins
First published 2017
This study examines the stylus phantasticus, a compositional approach that flourished in north German Baroque keyboard music. Paul Collins begins with Athanasius Kircher's original formulation of the fantastic style and follows its theoretical development through the writings of Brossard, Janovka, Mattheson, and Walther. Collins then analyzes how Italian keyboard composers like Merulo, Frescobaldi, Rossi, and Froberger shaped the style through their toccatas. The book's central focus turns to north German organists including Tunder, Weckmann, Reincken, Buxtehude, Bruhns, Lubeck, Bohm, and Leyding, who transformed these influences into a distinctive regional practice. Collins explores how these composers blurred the boundaries between written composition and improvised performance, revealing seventeenth-century attitudes toward creative originality and individual expression in musical fantasy.
Genres: non-fiction, music, art-history, classical-music, academic, history-of-science
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: academic
Setting: Germany, Italy, North Germany
Period: Baroque
248 pages · Kindle Edition · Routledge