Toccata Quarta in G minor

Fugue in G minor, BWV 578

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Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Delivery and Returns see our delivery rates and policies thinking of returning an item? Consequently, the name of the piece was again given in Italian as Toccata con Fuga and the piece was again written down in D Dorian i. However more modern conventions were maintained with regard to using the treble clef in the upper stave and using a separate stave for the pedal.

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A facsimile of Ringk's manuscript was published in The first major public performance was by Mendelssohn, on 6 August in Leipzig. The concert was very well received by the critics, among them Robert Schumann , who admired the work's famous opening as an example of Bach's sense of humor. Power Biggs recorded the Toccata 14 times played on different European organs, and Columbia issued these recordings on a single album. Here is elemental and unbounded power, in impatiently ascending and descending runs and rolling masses of chords, that only with difficulty abates sufficiently to give place to the logic and balance of the fugue.

With the reprise of the initial Toccata, the dramatic idea reaches its culmination amidst flying scales and with an ending of great sonority. Bach's Toccata and Fugue were not performed on the organ exclusively: Tausig's version of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor was recorded on piano rolls several times in the first decades of the 20th century.

In Johann Nikolaus Forkel 's early 19th century biography of Bach the work is left unmentioned: Forkel probably did not even know the composition. Hilgenfeldt's biography it is merely listed among the published works. Hilgenfeldt considers the Toccata and Fugue in F major the most accomplished of Bach's toccatas for organ. Philipp Spitta devoted somewhat less than a page to the work in the first volume of his Bach biography. He assumed the work was written in the first year of Bach's second Weimar period — In the form of the Toccata he saw more north German characteristics Buxtehude's restless style than south German Pachelbel's simple and quiet approach.

Spitta considered the fugue "particularly suited to the organ, and more especially effective in the pedal part. Spitta also saw a rhythmic figure that appears briefly in the concluding part of the work bar reappear extensively elaborated in the keyboard Prelude in A minor, BWV , which he supposes to have been composed around He considers none of them written before Bach's later Weimar years so closer to than to Up to this point none of the biographers seem to have given any special attention to BWV This was however about to change: In the D minor toccata and fugue, the strong and ardent spirit has finally realised the laws of form.

A single dramatic ground-thought unites the daring passage work of the toccata, that seems to pile up like wave on wave; and in the fugue the intercalated passages in broken chords only serve to make the climax all the more powerful. In Hubert Parry 's Bach biography the work is qualified as "well known" and "one of the most effective of [Bach's] works in every way".

He calls the Toccata "brilliantly rhapsodical", more or less follows Spitta in the description of the fugue, and is most impressed by the coda: Alberto Basso calls BWV "famosissimo" most famous and "celebratissima" most celebrated in the first volume of his Bach biography, indicating that, somewhat unjustified when its quality is compared to other organ compositions by Bach, the popularity of these works hinges entirely on this composition.

He sees it as a youth work composed before , that with its underdeveloped fugue is stylistically eclectic but unified without breaking continuity. He links it to the northern school and mentions Tausig, Busoni and Stokowki as influencing its trajectory. Basso warns against seeing too much in the composition: He considers it an early work, probably composed for testing a new organ: For instance the crescendo that builds up through arpeggios, gradually building up to using hundreds of pipes at the same time, can show exactly at what point the wind system of the organ may let down.

Early Italian Piano Music (Esposito, Michele)

In this sense some of the more unusual characteristics of the piece can be explained as fitting in Bach's capacity as an organ tester. In this book he devoted less than a page to BWV Pirro supposes Bach had success with this music in the smaller German courts he visited.

All in all he judges the music as superficial, not more than a stepping stone in Bach's development. In the early s Harvey Grace published a series of articles on Bach's organ works.

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He considers that the notes of the piece are not too difficult to play, but that an organist performing the work is primarily challenged by interpretation. He continues with giving tips on how to perform the work so that it does not reach the ear of the listener as a "meaningless scramble". He describes the fugue as slender and simple, but only a "very sketchy example of the form". Grace refers to Pirro in his description of the piece, elaborates Pirro's "storm" analogy and like Pirro he seems convinced Bach went touring with the piece.

His suggestions for the organ registration make comparisons with how the piece would be played by an orchestra.

Fugue in G minor, BWV - Wikipedia

Keller saw the opening bars' unison passages as "descending like a lightning flash, the long roll of thunder of the broken chords of the full organ, and the stormy undulation of the triplets. The author warns against numerological overinterpretation like Volker Gwinner's. Many parts of the composition are described as typical for Bach. Williams sees stylistic matches with Pachelbel, with the north German organ school, with the Italian violin school, but sees as well various unusual features of the composition. Williams questions the authenticity of the piece, based on its various unusual features, and elaborates the idea that the piece may have a violin version ancestor.

Around the same time as Grace made orchestral version comparisons in his performance suggestions, Edward Elgar was producing his orchestrations of two organ pieces by Bach, however not choosing BWV for this: Elgar did not particularly like that work, nor Schweitzer's glowing comments about it. In Eugene Ormandy recorded his orchestration of the piece with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Its first uses in sound film included the film Dr. Hyde and the film The Black Cat. From another approach to using BWV in film was in the make: Oskar Fischinger suggested to Stokowski abstract animations could be combined with his orchestral version of BWV , but the Disney studios were initially slow in accepting the idea.

By the time Fantasia was released in , the animations to Bach's BWV had been made semi-abstract, but Fischinger's original idea to let the performance of the music start with showing Stokowski directing his orchestra was preserved.

Narrator Deems Taylor introduced the piece as belonging in the category of absolute music. In the theatrical release of the film by RKO the Toccata and Fugue was entirely cut, only to return in a re-release. Fantasia contributed significantly to the fame of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Man for 26 episodes between and A certain uneasiness regarding BWV had been around long before the s. From Hilgenfeldt in to Elgar in the s to Basso in the late s the extraordinary popularity of the piece seems to have taken scholars and musicians by surprise.

From Mendelssohn's prophetic words, that it was something for both the erudite and the masses, only the latter part had really worked out. But scholars were getting involved: In a article Peter Williams reiterated the speculations with which he saw a way out of the conundrum, and which he had already announced in his book on Bach's organ compositions: The analysis of the material sources for the piece, its oldest surviving manuscripts, was, although insufficiently pursued according to some scholars, [] experienced as too limited to give a conclusive answer to these questions: The matter still remains open, despite the scholarly discourse that began in No edition of the Bach Werke Verzeichnis listed BWV among the spurious or doubtful works, [] nor does its entry on the website of the Bach Archiv Leipzig even mention such doubts.

In Antony Davies remarked that the Toccata was void of counterpoint.

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Walter Emery advocated speculation as a viable method to approach the history of Bach's organ compositions, [] and Friedrich Blume saw problems with the traditional historiography of Bach's youth. Hypotheses proposed by Williams in that article included that BWV may have been composed after and may have been based on an earlier composition for another instrument, supposedly violin. Williams added more stylistic issues to the ones already mentioned by Bullivant, among others the parallel octaves throughout the opening of the toccata, the true subdominant answers in the fugue and the primitive harmonies throughout the piece, with countersubjects in the fugue frequently moving through thirds and sixths only.

All of these characteristics are either unique or extremely rare for organ music of the first half of the 18th century. In Rolf-Dietrich Claus decided against the authenticity of BWV mainly based on the stylistic characteristics of the piece. By the end of the 20th century Hans Fagius wrote: There are, however, few organ pieces with so much spirit and drive, and why should not a genius like Bach, in youthful high spirits, have produced this unique work, which is in some respects half a century before its time and which could achieve a place as one of the most beloved compositions in all of music history?

The authorship debate continued in the 21st century: Wolff called it a pseudo-problem. Emans thinks this sort of speculation unhelpful. The other hypothesis elaborated by Williams suggests that BWV may have been a transcription of a lost solo violin piece. Parallel octaves and the preponderance of thirds and sixths may be explained by a transcriber's attempt to fill in harmony which, if preserved as is, would be inadequately thin on a pipe organ.

This is corroborated by the fact that the subject of the fugue, and certain passages such as bars 12—15 , are evidently inspired by string music. Bach is known to have transcribed solo violin works for organ at least twice: Thus a new format of adaptations saw the light: Reconstructions of this kind have been applied to several other works by Bach, with variable success. In Bernhard Billeter proposed a harpsichord toccata original, [4] deemed unlikely by Williams.

Bach's harpsichord toccatas most of them early works have similar simplisms and quirks as BWV Recordings of BWV that have appeared on popular music charts include Sky 's rock-inspired recording 83 on Billboard Hot [] and Vanessa-Mae 's violin recording 24 on the Billboard charts. In the mids Fred Mills , then trumpet player for Canadian Brass , created an adaptation for brass quintet that became a worldwide standard for brass ensembles.

References consisting of a last name and date refer to an entry in the Sources section below:. Unless otherwise indicated all weblinks in numbered footnotes checked and accessed From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Toccata Quarta in G minor Sheet Music by Girolamo Frescobaldi

Opening of the toccata. Stokowski and the Organ. On Music , pp. The American Record Label Book.

Hyperion , , p. Harcourt, Brace and Howe; London: La vita e le opere di J. Bach , Volume 1 of 2: Meaning and Interpretation of Music in Cinema , p. Music in the Horror Film: Touchstones of Gothic Horror: Listening to Fear edited by Neil Lerner.

Color Music and Walt Disney's Fantasia" p. University of Illinois Press. The Musical Quarterly

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