Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 06/01/2003, uploaded on 04/28/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Bach’s set of seven Toccatas for keyboard date from 1707-11, just prior to and during the first years of his post in Weimar. During these formative years he experimented with a wide variety of compositional models. Overall, these early toccatas lack the profound expression and technical mastery of Bach’s later music and are thus some of the least performed of his works. All too often, they come off as improvisatory and mere virtuosic pieces for keyboard. Nevertheless, they show the steady growth of one of music’s greatest geniuses.

Of these seven works, the Toccata in G minor perhaps best shows Bach’s experimentation with forms. Throughout his career, Bach often used the older forms of the 17^th century, many of which had long gone out of style. In fact, by the final decades of Bach’s life, when he undoubtedly work some of his finest works, the music world as a whole was well on its way towards the simpler forms of the Classical period. However, to rejuvenate these dying forms, Bach recast them to better fit his purpose often resulting in unusual structures with only remnants of the original form remaining. Less than a century later, another great composer would do the same thing with the sonata form and fugue.

Composed possibly in 1707-08 and definitely no later than 1712, the Toccata in G minor inherits the toccata structure of the North German organ school made popular by composers like Buxtehude. It begins with a brilliant passage beginning in the upper register but quickly plunging to the bass. This brief passage of only a few bars leads into an adagio of a Sarabande-like character. All this, however, serves as introduction for the following allegro. Deferring the expected tonic key of G minor, Bach instead chooses its relative major, B flat, to begin the allegro. This section is an extended fugato in four voices. Dynamic indications imply an alternation of “tutti” and “solo” sections giving the allegro the character of a concerto movement. Denying the listener a final cadence in B flat, Bach then returns to the adagio tempo and the tonic key of G minor. Though in the same meter, this adagio differs from the first and comes to a close in G major. Following this second adagio is a fugue of great length. Infused with the energetic rhythm of the gigue, the fugue would seem to be a fit conclusion for the work, and indeed it would be in a proper toccata of the 17^th century. However, at the last cadence of the fugue, Bach suddenly returns to the rapidly descending passage that opened the work. For the final cadence, he returns with two bars in triple meter that vaguely resemble the closing of the second adagio.    Joseph DuBose