Biography
Little is known of the Italian composer Storace beyond the details he supplied himself on the title page of his only surviving publication, where he described his post as assistant master of music to the senate in Messina, Sicily; any northern Italian origins remain inferred solely from stylistic traits. His importance rests on an exhaustive exploration of variations derived from a single twenty-four-bar theme, or alternatively a four-bar phrase, unfolding over a sequential bass progression through multiple keys. That lone extant volume, “Selva di varie compositioni d’intavolatura per cimbalo ed organo,” reveals a precise grasp of tonal focus centered on I, IV, and V harmonies, an approach especially clear in the toccatas. Among the ricercars, one stands apart for its energetic design: three distinct thematic sections are followed by a fourth that fuses the earlier material by superimposing the themes together.