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Toccata No. 3

Leonardo Leo (1694–1744) · sheet music

  • Time 3/8
  • Levels 7–8
  • Passages 13

Your turn · both hands

 

 

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Leonardo Leo, Italian baroque (1694–1744). The reading release has 13 passages from this piece at levels 7–8; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 1–4 for both hands together.

Practice the hard bars →

The hardest stretch is bars 9–12 at level 8.

Your practice path

Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of Toccata No. 3.

  1. Hands together · bars 1–8 level 7
  2. The hardest bars · bars 9–12 level 8

How to play Toccata No. 3

  1. Tempo:Feel each 3/8 bar as one beat and keep that beat steady from first note to last. Pick a speed where the sixteenths stay perfectly even, since a toccata exposes any unevenness.
  2. Right hand:Almost every right-hand bar is a broken chord of six sixteenths. Before playing a bar, see the chord it spells and shape your hand around it, so the fingers fall on notes already under them.
  3. Left hand:The left hand mostly plays three eighths per bar, outlining the bass of each chord. Play it alone and listen to the line it makes; it tells you where the harmony is going.
  4. Hands together:Each left-hand eighth should land with every second right-hand sixteenth. Practice a few bars with the right hand playing only those coinciding notes, then fill in the rest.
  5. Reading:Two flats in the key signature, plus F sharps for G minor and C sharps when the music turns toward D minor. Scan each passage for those sharps before you play.
  6. Fingering:Use the same fingering for every repetition of a sequence pattern. When the pattern moves to a new pitch, keep the finger order and just move the hand.
  7. Dynamics:Harpsichord and organ cannot swell within a line, so shape this piece by grouping and touch. A slight lean on the first sixteenth of each bar keeps the pulse clear without heavy accents.
  8. Practice:Practice the right hand as block chords first, one chord per bar, to learn the hand shapes. Then break them out into sixteenths at a slow tempo.

Common mistakes

  • Rushing the second half of each bar so the six sixteenths become uneven. Fix: Count one-and-two-and-three-and aloud for a few bars, one syllable per sixteenth.
  • Missing the F sharps and C sharps that come and go. Fix: Pencil them in on a first read and erase them once the patterns feel familiar.
  • Letting the long held D in the bass die out too soon at the end. Fix: Hold the octave for its full length and listen to it under the right-hand figures.
  • Shifting hand position late in the sequences and grabbing the first note. Fix: Practice moving from the last note of one bar to the first of the next, alone, until the jump is automatic.

Structure: toccata (continuous figuration)

Instead of a tune with accompaniment, the piece spins one texture from start to finish: the right hand plays broken chords in sixteenths while the left hand walks below in eighths. The harmony moves through sequences, settles on a cadence in D minor, then returns to the opening figures and drives home to G minor over a long held D in the bass.

A · Opening and sequence (G minor)
The right hand unfolds broken chords that step down through a chain of keys while the bass outlines each new chord. The patterns repeat at new pitches, so read the shape, not every note.
B · Move to D minor
C sharps appear as the music heads for D minor, and the right hand stretches higher before a clear cadence gives a brief stop.
A' · Return (G minor)
The opening broken-chord sequence comes back, now leading toward the home key rather than away from it.
Coda · Pedal and close (G minor)
The left hand holds low D octaves while the right hand alternates two chord shapes above, then both hands land on full G minor chords.

About Toccata No. 3

Leonardo Leo was born in 1694 in San Vito degli Schiavoni in Apulia and became a student at the Pietà dei Turchini conservatory in Naples in 1703. He went on to hold posts at the royal chapel and to teach at the conservatory, while writing operas, both comic and serious, and a large amount of church music. He died in Naples in 1744.

His fourteen keyboard toccatas survive in a Naples manuscript that IMSLP describes as most probably not in Leo's own hand, and they are dated to around 1730. They are written for harpsichord, with organ as an alternative. A related Naples manuscript gathers Leo's toccatas together with partimenti, the figured-bass exercises Neapolitan students worked through.

No. 3 is one of two toccatas in the set in G minor. It is a compact piece that keeps a single figure going in quick 3/8 time, and a piano version appears in Faber's The Advanced Pianist anthology.

  • Leo died of a stroke in 1744 while writing new arias for a revival of his comic opera La finta frascatana.
  • The French writer De Brosses praised Leo's comic opera Amor vuol sofferenza highly.
  • Leo's earliest known work, the sacred drama L'infedeltà abbattuta, was performed by his fellow students in 1712.
  • Of Leo's fourteen toccatas, both No. 2 and No. 3 are in G minor.

Why the first passage is level 7

That passage is level 7 rather than 6 because it runs fast figuration.

All passages on this page sit at a demanding level. Choose one four-bar passage at a time, read each bar as a single chord shape, and expect to slow everything down.

Questions about Toccata No. 3

How hard is Toccata No. 3 to play?
Its passages grade from level 7 to level 8 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, so the full piece is intermediate to advanced reading. The hardest stretch is bars 9–12 at level 8.
Is there an easy part of Toccata No. 3 for beginners?
Its easiest passage is level 7, so it suits a reader past the beginner stage. Start with bars 1–4 for both hands together, the level-7 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 7 because it runs fast figuration.
What key and time signature is Toccata No. 3 in?
The engraving on this page is in 3/8 time.
Who composed Toccata No. 3?
Leonardo Leo, Italian baroque (1694–1744). Leonardo Leo was born in 1694 in San Vito degli Schiavoni in Apulia and became a student at the Pietà dei Turchini conservatory in Naples in 1703.
Can I practice Toccata No. 3 online for free?
Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 13 graded passages from Toccata No. 3 in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
What is a toccata?
A toccata is a keyboard piece meant to show off touch and fluent fingers, usually with running figures and few pauses. The name comes from the Italian word for touched.
Was Leo's Toccata No. 3 written for piano?
No. The set is for harpsichord, with organ as an alternative, and dates from around 1730, before the piano was in general use. It works well on piano with a light touch and little pedal.
Is Leo's Toccata No. 3 in the public domain?
Yes. Leo died in 1744, and both a scan of the Naples manuscript and free modern editions of the toccatas are available on IMSLP.

Every passage, easiest first

The reading release grades 13 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:

Level 7
bars 1–8 both hands · bars 1–4 both hands · bars 5–8 both hands · bars 17–20 both hands · bars 21–24 both hands · bars 25–28 both hands · bars 33–40 both hands · bars 33–36 both hands · bars 37–40 both hands · bars 41–44 both hands · bars 49–52 both hands
Level 8
bars 9–12 both hands · bars 17–24 both hands

More pieces to sight-read

Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261023-identity-audit reading release.

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