Toccata di Paradisi

Paradisi’s toccata is a splendid work for harpsichord by the Italian composer Pietro Domenico Paradisi, sometimes also known as Pier Domenico Paradies. The score is actually the second movement (Allegro) from Sonata VI.

It has become a famous piece because it has been played for more than two centuries, on the harpsichord and then on piano.
This score has a great pedagogical importance and is very beautiful to listen to. For these reasons I decided to make a transcription for bandoneon of it.

At first I thought I to change the pitch to the transcription but then I preferred not to. In this way I could take advantage of the natural “predilection” of the central part of the bandoneon keyboards for the tonality of A major and I could apply the principle of quiet hand.

The application of the quiet hand principle reduces the travel of the hand to distant parts of the keyboard and the execution is concentrated in specific regions.

For the transcription I didn’t change the score very much: I “broke” a phrasing with an octave jump (bar 10 in original, bar 13 in the transcription) and I mantained the octave for the ending phrases of the first and the second sections (bars 22-26 and 48-51 in the original).

The arrangement is in the key of A Major, with an average difficulty level, making it accessible to bandoneon players with some experience.

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