Willaert - first ricercar from Musica Nova – Venice 1540.
This is the first of many important ricercars clearly written for organ but neglected simply because they were originally printed in part-books, the only way of printing contrapuntal music at the time. Not before the 17th century were such ricercars printed in open score in Venice. The problem with the Italian keyboard-notation known as intavolatura was that it made no attempt to clarify part-writing; it was used for ricercars only when they were embellished.