Similar to Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, his contemporary equivalent from the Netherlands, Italian organist and composer Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) laid down the late Renaissance and early Baroque keyboard practices, foundation and groundwork which later enabled Johann Sebastian Bach to develop harmony and counterpoint to levels unsurpassed to this day. Harmonically naïve, including some odd intervals now and then, and predominantly based on repetition and variation rather than development, his music nonetheless was the important transmuting bridge between the strictly vocal music of the Renaissance and the instrumental music of the Baroque period. He established the pipe organ as the baroque instrument par excellence. The expressive style within the forms of keyboard music like the toccata, ricercar, fantasy, canzone and fugue, opened the doors to numerous possibilities. He was the organist at St. Peter's in Rome, and it is said that audiences of over thirty thousand listened to his playing in St. Peter's square.

Swiss performer, researcher, teacher and organist Adrien Pièce brings out the authenticity and sense of discovery within these works. The Italian Baroque organ was often a single-manual instrument, without pedals, and the 1990 Italian style Bartolomeo Formentelli organ in the Saint-François church in Lausanne is an excellent replica. Despite its small scale and around only fourteen stops for registration, it still offers a wide enough range of possible combinations and tonal characteristics to suit each and every piece accordingly. And Adrien Pièce makes full use of its possibilities. The harpsichord is a 2014 Matthias Griewisch based on Italian models of the 17th century. Its light and airy sound suits the clarity of this music very well.

This scholarly, as well as highly musical 2-Disc set, should be enough to convince you of Frescobaldi's innovative and at times even adventurous and groundbreaking style, which planted the seed that was to bloom and flourish into manifold creative directions only a few years later.