Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 is a popular piece of music for the organ. It is attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, and is one of the best known works in the organ repertoire. It has been dated to between 1703 and 1707, and if this is correct, it would be one of Bach's earliest works.

View a score of this piece (from the Bach-Gesellschaft edition).

The music

The opening of the work is probably familiar to most people. In the musical score it looks like this:

Opening passage of the "Toccata and Fugue in D minor". Click here to hear the passage played on the organ (802K)

Influence of other composers

The source of that rhapsodic treatment that is apparent in Bach's earlier organ works is not so hard to find: Bach was a great admirer of Dieterich Buxtehude in his early years. In 1706 he even absented several months from his job in order to hear Buxtehude in Lübeck.

Buxtehude's organ works, like those of his contemporaries, are characterized by the presence of the stylus phantasticus, a performance style derived from improvisation. The stylus phantasticus included elements of excitement and bravura, with adventurous harmonies and sudden changes in registration. Buxtehude's free organ works made great use of these elements. These works generally began with a free section, followed by an imitative section (sometimes a full-blown fugue), then another free section, and then another imitative section (usually based on motivic material from the first imitative section), and finally another free section. BWV 565 derives several of its stylistic elements from this earlier form of organ music, in particular the stylus phantasticus.

The organ test hypothesis

The exceptional number of fermatas and broken chords in the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 has been explained by some (for example, Klaus Eidam; see references below) on the supposition Bach composed it as a work to test an organ. The first thing Bach is said to have done when testing an organ is to pull out all the stops and play in the fullest possible texture, in order to see if the organ had "good lungs," i.e. bellows sufficient enough to provide plenty of wind to the instrument. If there was not enough wind, the pitch and tone quality would suffer. The opening of BWV 565, with its three opening flourishes and massive rolled chord, would serve as a good test for an organ's winding system.

Reception

The work is unquestionably a favorite of the listening public. This includes not just classical music enthusiasts, but also the many people who know the work only through its numerous appearances (see below) in popular culture.

Musical critics have also admired the work. For instance, it is described by (Uwe Kraemer) as having "ecstatic technical virtuosity and [also] mastery of form" and by (Hans-Joachim Schulze) as having "elemental and unbounded power ... that only with difficulty abates sufficiently to give place to the logic and balance of the Fugue". While it is not an easy work to perform on the organ, it is one of the easier of Bach's preludes and fugues. For the most part, Bach's organ music became increasingly more difficult to play as his life went on, and the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" was written very early in his career.

Authorship controversy

In "BWV 565: a toccata in D minor for organ by J. S. Bach?", Early Music, vol. 9, July, 1981, pp. 330-337, Peter Williams argued that the work is not by Bach. In support of this view, he cites the following:

• There is no autograph score.
• The copyist who created the oldest known manuscript (Johann Ringk, 1717-1778) was a student of a student of Bach's, who had access to some of the Bach manuscripts and whose reputation is dubious: he is believed to have passed off inauthentic (as well as authentic) works under the composer's name.
• The work abounds in fermatas and dynamic markings, not ordinarily used in organ music in Bach's day.
• Lastly, Williams alleges that various musical passages in the work are simply too crude musically to have been Bach's work.

Williams' views have more recently been endorsed in a book-length study by the musicologist Rolf Dietrich Claus, cited below.

This view is further endorsed by the proliferation of undisguised consecutive fifths in the piece (no less than 10 bars in), which Bach was always careful to avoid. Even if the piece were a transcription of a solo instrumental work, these fifths still form an integral part of the work.

Transcriptions for other instruments

This popular work has been transcribed many times. There are two types of transcriptions: these searching the original form of the work, and those primarily aiming at expanding the use of the work to new audiences: the violin transcriptions described below fall in the former category, all others mentioned here (which only are a few of the most notable examples) in the latter.

Violin

In the same article mentioned above, Peter Williams theorized that the Toccata and Fugue was not originally written for organ, but in fact is a transcription of a work for solo violin. Williams places this original violin work a fifth higher, in the key of A minor, so that the work begins on a high E and descends almost to the lowest note on the instrument:

Peter Williams's conjecture about how the opening of the Toccata and Fugue appeared in an earlier violin version

Under this account, many aspects of the work fall into place.

• The fairly plain musical texture would reflect the general texture of Bach's well known solo sonatas and partitas for violin, which often convey a contrapuntal texture implicitly, rather than through double-stopping.
• Various passages echo a violin technique in which sixteenth notes (semiquavers) are played by alternating between strings--Williams's conjectured key of A minor places many of these notes on an open string, which would fit with other passages in Bach's solo violin works.
• The use of parallel octaves in the opening, otherwise unusual in Bach's music, would be a natural way to give greater weight to a solo violin line.
• The passage at m. 137 seems to suggest quadruple-stopped chords on a violin, though such chords are rare in works of Bach's time and prohibitively difficult to play.

File:BachToccataAndFugueInDMinorRecastAsViolinMusic.GIF

Peter Williams's conjecture about how a passage of the Toccata appeared in an earlier violin version

Williams put his theory into practice by writing a reconstruction of the conjectured original violin work, which has been performed (by violinist Jaap Schröder) and published. The violinist Andrew Manze subsequently produced his own reconstruction, also in A minor, which he has performed widely and recorded.

The possibility that the Toccata and Fugue is a violin-to-organ transcription is supported by the fact that at least twice in his career, Bach is known to have transcribed solo violin works for organ. The Prelude first movement of the Partita in E major for solo violin, BWV 1006, was converted by Bach into the solo organ part of the opening movement of the Cantata BWV 29 Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir. Bach also transcribed the Fugue movement of his Sonata in G minor for solo violin BWV 1001 as organ music, namely as the second half of the Prelude and Fugue in D minor for organ, BWV 539.

Piano

Around the end of the 19th century a "second wave" Bach revival occurred (the first having been the one launched earlier in the 19th century by Mendelssohn among others). In the second wave, much of Bach's instrumental music was adapted to resources that were available in salon settings (piano, chamber ensemble, etc.). The composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was a leader of this movement, providing many piano transcriptions of Bach compositions, many of which radically altered the original version. Among them was a loud and virtuosic version of the Toccata and Fugue.

Orchestra

Another Bach-revival wave announced itself in the 20th century. For this wave, which was probably the first major Bach wave in the United States, Walt Disney was instrumental: Disney favoured classical music and after including pot-pourri bits of classical music in most of his animation film scores, he tried out a more in-depth approach with Dukas's Apprenti Sorcier, which led to the project he considered one of his most important endeavours ever: Fantasia.

This film opens with Leopold Stokowski's orchestral version (for a very extended orchestra) of the Toccata and Fugue, as an example of absolute music (i.e. where there is no extra-musical image built in to the music itself). Stokowski's rendering breathes a very romantic interpretation of Bach's music, making it into a showpiece of orchestral color, virtuosity, and sheer volume: at the time he had produced his transcription (1927) ideas about authentic performance were still more than half a century away, and nothing much had changed in that respect by the time Fantasia was released (1940).

Stokowski's version inspired other settings for large orchestra of Bach's music, particularly his organ compositions. Eugene Ormandy released an album of such works, reviving, together with some fresh arrangements, Elgar's Op. 86, a pre-Stokowski orchestration of the Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 537, enriched with abundant harp strokes (Vinyl album reference: Bach: Orchestral Works, Philips Favourite Series - Minigroove 33^1/3 - S 04614 L).

Flute

In 1993 Salvatore Sciarrino made an arrangement for solo flute of BWV 565. This transcription was recorded in the early 21st century by Maria Caroli (released on Zig Zag Territoires: ZZT 040802). A review by Peter Grahame Woolf of this interpretation can be found here: http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/reviews/cddvd/SciarrinoBachCaroli.htm

The Toccata and Fugue in popular culture

Apart from the transcriptions mentioned above, the Toccata and Fugue was included in many samples of popular culture: the films Fantasia (see above), Rollerball, Sunset Boulevard, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, the musical/film The Phantom of the Opera, The Aviator, La Dolce Vita, and the video game Gyruss. Further examples follow:

• Linda Brava released her version of the Toccata and Fugue in 1997, and the version got a critical acclaim. It can be heard on her debut album called Linda Lampenius.
• Vanessa-Mae recorded a version for her album The Violin Player (1994/1995). Vanessa Mae's version of the Toccata and Fugue also appeared in several remixes (by Bobby d'Ambrosio, Lectroluv, etc.).
• Sky, guitarist John Williams' instrumental group, recorded the piece in 1980, with the main instrument being the electric guitar (played by Kevin Peek, also credited with the arrangement). The single reached the heights of the singles charts in several European countries in the summer of 1980. This spawned many imitations over the next decade or so.
• "Imitation Situation" by Fever Tree (San Francisco Girls) (1967) opened with the opening figure of the toccata.
• Virgil Fox performed a series of concerts of Bach organ works for rock music audiences in the 1970's, one of which included a dramatic performance of the Toccata and Fugue, to illustrate his view that Bach's music should be interpreted using all the available modern resources, as opposed to using only the means of expression that would have been available in Bach's time.
• The Swollen Members song "Steppin Thru" contains a re-written version of the opening of the toccata as a bassline throughout the song.
• The Eurobeat song by Mega NRG Man, "Back On The Rocks", features the opening of the Toccata as its intro.
• The Band's organist Garth Hudson played part of the Toccata for the famous opening solo on Cest Fever from Music From Big Pink
• Mötley Crüe used it as an introtape to their concert at the 1983 US_Festival in San Bernadino, Califronia.
• Orochimaru's theme music in the anime and manga Naruto seems to borrow some elements from the piece.
• Eudial of the Witches 5, villains from Sailor Moon S, plays a recording of the Toccata as she torments Sailor Uranus.
• One of the gags in The Great Race has Jack Lemmon's character Professor Fate perform the Toccatta on an organ, then leave the instrument to dine whilst the music continues, revealing that it is a "player" organ with a piano roll.
• Bjork's song "Cover Me" from the "Post" album in the string quartet and vocal version opens with the Tocatta's beginning sequence, performed by a violin.

See also

• List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach

References

• The fourth chapter of Klaus Eidam's The True Life of J. S. Bach (English translation by Hoyt Rogers ISBN 0-465-01861-0) elaborates considerably on the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565. A review by Yo Tomita of that book can be found here.
• Peter Williams's article is available at the fee-charging Web site of Early Music; a summary appears at this link: [1], on the Web site of www.bachfaq.org.
• Rolf Dietrich Claus's researches on the authenticity of the work are reported in his book Zur Echtheit von Toccata und Fuge d-moll BWV 565 ("On the authenticity of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565"), published by Verlag Dohr, 2nd ed. Cologne 1998, ISBN 3925366377. An English-language review of Claus's work by Yo Tomita can be read at this link.