Toccata III, primo libro by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643)

I found a really cool video on youtube of a woman playing this piece on a clavichord.  It sounds to me like "continuous improvisation" at work here.  In fact, I can almost picture a musical genius improvising most of this on the spot.  It switches between slow and dramatic arpeggios and very fast runs and scales.  It seems like a good way for the skilled keyboardist to show off.  The music itself (in this particular instance at least) seems a little bit lacking in the way of any coherent melody to grasp.  It truly sounds pretty random most of the time.  I like improvisation, but other than being amazed by the prowess of the musician, I am not much of a fan of this style of improvisation.  Maybe because it all starts to sound the same to me after awhile?  It's personal preference of course, but I like the way jazz music does improv better (head, solos, head).  I found a score for the piece on IMSLP and she is definitely taking a lot of liberties with the tempo of this music.  Of course there are no tempo markings or expressions in the score, so it's open to interpretation.  I've just always thought about the Baroque period as having a very rhythmically driving element to much of it's music, and yet she is using so much rubato, and adding so many fermatas that it almost sounds Romantic period.  Maybe this is just a common misconception on my part about Baroque music.