Toccata
Virtuoso composition for keyboard or plucked string instrument.
Brilliant passage work, with or without imitative or fugal interludes.
Early description (1619): "A prelude that an organist, starting to play,...fantasizes out of his head before commencing a motet or fugue."
Quasi-improvisatory disjunct harmonies, sweeping scales, broken-chord figuration.
Early examples: Italian 1536 (Milan): anthology of lute dances, preceded by toccatas (spelled tochata)
Further development in Venice 
(in organ works, sustained note in pedal, with brilliant passage work in hands)
Sperindio Bertoldo, 1591
Annibale Padovano, 1604
Giovanni Gabrieli, 1597, 1615
Claudio Merulo, 1594-1604
Frescobaldi 1583-1643 (first high point for toccata)
Spreads quickly throughout Europe
In Germany, moves first to the South (Catholic) and then into North (Protestant)
South Germans:
Hans Leo Hassler (1607) 
Johann Jacob Froberger (1616)
Johann Pachelbel (1653)
North Germans:
Johann Kaspar Kerll (1686)
Gottlieb Muffat (1726)
Johann Ernst Eberlin 1747
Franz Tunder 1614

J.S. Bach (big high point for toccata): Harpsichord toccatas, toccatas and fugues for organ
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major for organ

After 1750, term toccata fell into disuse, although form continued. Beethoven (1770-1827): Finales to piano sonatas: op. 26 & 54 and String Quartet op. 59, no. 3
Czerny 1824
Schumann Toccata in C op. 7 (1829)
Liszt Toccata (1865)
Widor 1880 Finale to 5th Organ Symphony

 

Bach revival (started by Mendelssohn) inspired multimovement  toccatas modeled on Bach's C-Major toccata. Mendelssohn organ sonatas (1844)
Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901)
Max Reger 1873-1916
20th century: Single movement toccatas Debussy (Pour le piano 1901)
Prokofiev op. 11, 1912
Holst Toccata for Piano, 1924
Poulenc 1928