A ricercar (or ricercare; the terms are interchangeable) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1450 to 1600. ... Baroque music is European classical music written during the Baroque era, approximately 1600 to 1750. ...

In its most common contemporary usage, it refers to an early kind of fugue, particularly one of a serious character in which the subject uses long note values. However the term has a considerably more varied historical usage. In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ...

In the sixteenth century, the word ricercar could refer to several types of compositions. Terminology was flexible, even lax then: whether a composer called an instrumental piece a toccata, a canzona, a fantasia, or a ricercar was clearly not a matter of strict taxonomy but a rather arbitrary decision. Yet ricercars fall into two general types: a predominantly homophonic piece, with occasional runs and passagework, not unlike a toccata; and a sectional work in which each section begins imitatively, usually in a variation form. Examples of both types of ricercars can be found in the works of Girolamo Frescobaldi. The second type of ricercar, the imitative, contrapuntal type, was to prove the more important historically, and eventually developed into the fugue. Toccata (Italian for touched) is a piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. ... Canzona (also canzone) is a poetic form, and a type of musical composition. ... The fantasia (also English fantasy, German fantasie, French fantaisie) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... Imitation is when a musical gesture is repeated later in a different form, but retaining its original character. ... Girolamo Frescobaldi (September, 1583 – March 1, 1643) was one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. ...

This second, imitative type first appeared in the middle part of the sixteenth century, and developed parallel to the motet, with which it shared many of its imitative procedures. Instrumental transcriptions of motets were common in the early sixteenth century, and clearly composers began to create works which were like them in character but written for the instrument alone (keyboard or lute were common instruments represented in this development). Since the text of the motet was no longer available as a structural or unifying device, some other method of musical organization needed to be found: variation form proved the most malleable and durable. In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... The lute is a plucked string instrument with a fretted neck and a deep round back. ...

During the Baroque era, the imitative ricercar gradually evolved into the fugue, just as the instrumental canzona evolved into the sonata. Some works which are indistinguishable from fugues were called "ricercars" even as late as Bach, with the difference that the note values were generally longer and the character slightly more serious. A good example are the three-part and six-part ricercars from The Musical Offering (1747) by Johann Sebastian Bach. The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (21 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)[1] was a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and keyboard drew together almost all of the pre-existing strands of the baroque style and brought it to... The Musical Offering (German title Musikalisches Opfer or Das Musikalische Opfer), BWV 1079, is a collection of canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, based on a musical theme by Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great) and dedicated to him. ... // Events January 31 - The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Dock Hospital April 9 - The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat was beheaded by axe on Tower Hill, London, for high treason; he was the last man to be executed in this way in Britain May 14 - First battle of Cape... The 1748 Haussmann portrait of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (21 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)[1] was a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and keyboard drew together almost all of the pre-existing strands of the baroque style and brought it to...

References and further reading

• "Ricercar," "Fugue," "Counterpoint" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
• Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0393097455
• The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN 0674615255