What is "ricercar"

n. An instrumental musical composition, fugal in style but in a more serious character and with longer notes.

A ricercar (, also spelled ricercare, recercar, recercare) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece. A ricercar may explore the permutations of a given motif, and in that regard may follow the piece used as illustration. For example, "Ricercar sopra Benedictus" might develop motifs from a motet titled "Benedictus". The term is also used to designate an etude or study that explores a technical device in playing an instrument, or singing.

In its most common contemporary usage, it refers to an early kind of fugue, particularly one of a serious character in which the subject uses long note values. However the term has a considerably more varied historical usage.