Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565

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Title page of the oldest surviving copy by Johannes Ringk (after 1750)

Toccata and Fugue in D minor ( BWV 565) is by far the best-known organ work in European art music . It is traditionally attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach , even if his authorship has occasionally been questioned. The composition consists of three sections: a toccata , i.e. a prelude made up of fast runs and full-bodied chords, and a subsequent four-part fugue , which in turn leads to a final section called "Recitativo", which again has the quasi-improvisational character of the beginning records. All parts are connected to one another through clear motivic and harmonious references.

music

Opening bars of the toccata

The work begins with three characteristic quick calls from both hands in octaves; a diminished seventh chord follows above the organ point of the root of its dissolution. This already introduces the essential melodic material from which the further course develops. The seventh chord is used again and again to structure fast passage works, and similarly in arpeggiated form it forms the basis for the virtuoso figures in which both hands are always guided in parallel. "Diminished seventh and Neapolitan sixth chords form a combination of ancient and modern harmonies that seem downright characteristic of the young Bach."

Even more important is the element of the scale fragment descending from the fifth to the leading tone (seventh degree), from which most of the melodic processes are derived, and a motif that alternates the tones of a scale path with a constant, repeated recumbent tone - a latent two-part movement that is common in violin literature and is known there as the bariolage technique .

The fugue also develops its theme from this idea; Bach also used similar, latent two-part themes in later fugues, for example in the E minor fugue of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 855). The theme is not suitable for narrowing it down and is consequently carried out rather loosely: the exposition is only three-part, and later the interludes take up a lot of space, so that the final recitative, which again takes up elements of the toccata, organically from the Fugue emerges. It is really only in four voices in a few short passages, and contrapuntal finesse such as augmentation or inversion , which occur, for example, in the fugue in C minor BWV 871, is completely dispensed with. In contrast, there is a very ambitious key plan; In addition to a Comes (2nd topic assignment) on the IV. level, assignments also occur on the III. and in the minor key of the VII. degree, which form parallels to the fugue BWV 947. The proportioning according to four ritornelles and three episodes is emphasized by the abandonment of the pedal in parts, by unanimity and a pedal solo - means that "did not prevail in Bach's work, but [...] have been replaced by other techniques".

style

Beginning of the oldest surviving copy by Johannes Ringk (after 1750)

Toccata and Fugue in D minor have long been considered the undisputed work of Johann Sebastian Bach . The work was probably written in Arnstadt between 1703 and 1707 , so it represents a youth work. The comparison with the much later and much more mature C major toccata shows Bach's rapid development, but also that he was still in an experimental phase. While in the later work of Bach's parallel guidance of the two hands in octaves practically no longer occurs, here they are easily explained by the fact that the small Arnstadt organ did not have 16 'registers that octave downwards - but also from the fact that the composition was originally intended for a stringed piano with a pedal was probably written, the traditional practice instrument of organists.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor are conspicuously designed to be effective; This is opposed by an expressive, but at least in the toccata, surprisingly simple harmony: the essential and repeatedly played through harmonic process is the diminished seventh chord of the seventh degree and its dissolution; in some places the second stage is added. Larger modulations are also absent in the toccata. On the other hand, the deliberate limitation and the very economical use of this material demand admiration. The freshness of the invention and the compelling simplicity of the construction quickly made the plant friends.

Bach used most of his harpsichord and organ works in Leipzig; so there are often copies of many of his students. Of course, he excluded works that - decades after their creation - no longer considered suitable; this explains the comparatively thin tradition of many of his youthful works. The Toccata in D minor has not survived in the autograph either, but only in a single copy by the copyist Johannes Ringk .

Authorship

In the past few decades, doubts about Bach's authorship have increased. Above all, Peter Williams and later Rolf Dietrich Claus show that the stylistic peculiarities strongly contradict the works that have been handed down undoubtedly under Bach's name. It was also assumed that Bach copied or edited a foreign work here, whose possible author Johann Peter Kellner has been suggested. Other theories assume that it is a written improvisation by Bach or that the work could represent an organ arrangement of a violin composition by Bach. However, there are no references to an original version in this instrumentation and the question of the genre of toccata and fugue for violin arises. In any case, it would be incomprehensible why the scribe Ringk should have called the piece a work of Bach.

Christoph Wolff shows in his studies that "the other points of criticism cited by Claus - title, tempo markings and arpeggios - [...] can in reality be considered specifics of early Bach compositions" and interprets the beginning of the unison as a fully composed sub-octave coupling for an organ without a sixteen-foot register in the manual . Likewise, according to Wolff, the tradition of the work from Johann Peter Kellner's circle does not speak against Bach's authorship, but rather in favor of it, because many of Bach's youthful works have come down from this group. If the toccata and fugue in D minor is viewed in this context as a work by the young Johann Sebastian Bach, it forms “an important intermediate step on the way to the ritornello form of later fugues” within his work.

Many details and the high compositional quality speak strongly in favor of Bach as an author from today's perspective and ultimately only show the difficulty of grasping Bach's rapid compositional development in a phase from which only a few comparative works have survived. The old and new Bach editions as well as the Bach works directory list them as a composition by Bach.

Important edits

Toccata and Fugue in Popular Culture

Comparable perhaps only with the opening bars of the 5th symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven , already a played on the organ in a reverberant room in octaves associated Mordent reflexively D minor Toccata and is in popular culture iconography and stereotyped for "seriousness" and "sacred dignity". The work is frequently quoted in film scores and in numerous pieces from popular music to computer games.

literature

  • Timothy Albrecht: Musical Rhetoric in JS Bach's Organ Toccata BWV 565 . In: Organ Yearbook . tape 11 , 1980, ISSN  0920-3192 .
  • Eric Lewin Altschuler: Were Bach's Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 and the Ciacconia from BCW 1004 Lute Pieces? In: The Musical Times . tape 146 , no. 1893 , 2005, ISSN  0027-4666 , p. 77-87 .
  • Bernhard Billeter: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ BWV 565 - A harpsichord work? In: The music research . tape 50 , no. 1 , 1997, ISSN  0027-4801 , pp. 77-80 .
  • Martin Blindow: On the discussion of the D minor Toccata BWV 565. In: Acta Organologica . Vol. 36, 2019, pp. 401-429.
  • Rolf Dietrich Claus: On the authenticity of Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565. 2nd edition. Dohr, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-925366-55-5 .
  • Alfred Dürr : Authenticity of Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565' - A comment . In: Music and Church . tape 66 , 5, September / October, 1996, ISSN  0027-4771 , p. 326-327 .
  • Alfred Dürr: Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 . In: Music Research . tape 56 , 2, April / June, 2003, ISSN  0027-4801 , p. 222-223 .
  • Reinmar Emans: On the authenticity of Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 . In: The music research . tape 50 , no. 1 , 1997, ISSN  0027-4801 , pp. 113-114 .
  • Diethard Hellmann: Authenticity of Bach, JS “Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565” . In: Music and Church . tape 66 , 3, May / June, 1996, ISSN  0027-4771 , p. 173 .
  • Siegbert Rampe (Ed.): Bach's piano and organ works. Partial volume 1. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2007, ISBN 978-3-89007-458-0 , pp. 362-367.
  • Peter Williams : BWV565: A toccata in D minor for organ by JS Bach? In: Early Music . tape 9 , no. 3 , July 1981, ISSN  0306-1078 , pp. 330-337 .
  • Christoph Wolff : Johann Sebastian Bach. 2nd Edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16739-5 .

Web links

Commons : Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Siegbert Rampe (Ed.): Bach's piano and organ works. Volume 4/1. 2007, ISBN 978-3-89007-458-0 , p. 364.
  2. ^ Siegbert Rampe (ed.): Bach's piano and organ works. Volume 4/1. 2007, ISBN 978-3-89007-458-0 , p. 366.
  3. ^ A b Siegbert Rampe (Ed.): Bach's piano and organ works. Volume 4/1. 2007, ISBN 978-3-89007-458-0 , p. 367.
  4. ^ Christoph Wolff : Johann Sebastian Bach , 2nd edition 2007. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 978-3-596-16739-5
  5. ^ Stephan Emele: BWV 565 - a work by Kellner? (State examination thesis). - Also on the web in extracts .
  6. ↑ Peter Williams: BWV565: A toccata in D minor for organ by JSBach? In: Early Music. 1981.
  7. ↑ Christoph Wolff: On the North German context of the organ music of the youthful Bach: The apparent problem of the Toccata in D minor BWV 565. In: Wolfgang Sandberger (Hrsg.): Bach, Lübeck and the North German music tradition. Kassel 2002. pp. 241-251.