I.S. Bach Organ Toccata and Fugue (d-moll): history, video, interesting facts, music, listen

I.S. Bach Organ Toccata and Fugue (d-moll)

Organ tokkata and fugue (D minor) is an opus of organ music by Johann Sebastian Bach. The work is widely known and popular among professional organists and among fans of classical music. You can read the history of creation, get acquainted with interesting facts and content, listen to the work in unusual arrangements and arrangements on this page.

History of creation

Musicologists and researchers do not have a unanimous opinion concerning the date of the composition. Some claim that the cycle for the organ was created in the early creative period, others that a year before death. Conventionally, the date of writing is considered the period from 1701 to 1740.

It was not possible to establish the exact date, as the original notes were not preserved for the next generation. The only manuscript that has survived intact is a rewritten version of the 12-year-old Johannes Ringkom, a student of Johann Peter Kellner, who in his turn obediently learned polyphonic skill from the great Bach. The musical notation was published only a century after writing, namely in 1830. The popularity of the piece came thanks to the efforts of the famous musician and composer Felix Mendelssohn, who read the music of Bach and was engaged in its active propaganda.

A new round of Toccata popularity and fugue gained thanks to the famous multiplier Walt Disney. In 1940, he used music in the animated film "Fantasia", which earned a huge amount of positive reviews.

Today the cycle for an organ is considered the pinnacle of organ creativity. In order to perform a work it is necessary to possess virtuoso technique and brilliant skill in the possession of an organ.

Interesting Facts

• For a wide audience, the work was opened by the famous composer and popularizer of baroque music Felix Mendelssohn. It was thanks to him that the public was able to appreciate the magnificent works of the forgotten Bach.
• Many musicologists dispute the authorship of Bach, believing that the techniques used for the development of the polyphonic warehouse are not characteristic of the work of the composer of the Baroque era. So, rarely did Bach use parallel octaves and a subdominant response in the fugue.
• The work could not reach the descendants if it were not for organist and composer Johannes Ringk. The original manuscript, unfortunately, has not been preserved. There is a version that Johannes Ringku got it from a student of Bach Kellner.
• The key in D minor in the symbolism of the music of the composer is the personification of suffering and redemption. In this key, Johann Sebastian wrote another Toccata and Fugue cycle under the number BWV 538.

Unusual arrangements and arrangements

Today there are a huge number of pop and classic versions of the famous work for the organ. On the Internet you can find arrangements for various instruments and compositions, from piano and button accordion to strings and jazz compositions of the orchestra. The most famous arrangements are:

• Arrangement of Toccata's introductory recitative. Author French composer Paul Mauriat. This version is intended for string orchestra, which was conducted by the famous musician. It is widely known due to the use in the national television program "Man and the Law", which was broadcast on one of the Federal channels from 2002 to the present.

(listen)

• In the 19th century, an interesting version was created by Karl Tausig, he shifted the organ composition for piano, and it instantly became popular among musicians.

(listen)

• The orchestral transcription was created by Stokowski in the 20th century, and used by Walt Disney for the excellent animated film "Fantasy".

(listen)

Content

The cycle of toccats and fugues amazes with the unity and integrity of thought. The emotionally rich music shakes with inexhaustible depth from the first bars and keeps the listener in suspense until the last final chord. This is the mastery of the brilliant polyphonist Bach, who knows how to create a single thematic line, developing and not fading away within 10 minutes. The composition has an arched structure, so the motive that was set forth in the introduction in a modified version appears to the listener in the fugue code, closing the loop and making it logically complete.

Toccata

The pathos of tokkat is achieved through the use of dramatic musical techniques and elements. A capacious and laconic cry is nothing more than a call that attracts attention from the first bars. Three times the motive, set out in unison, takes place in different voices, asserting the basic musical thought. Jewelry rhetoric dates back to baroque style.

Toccata is built on a single musical theme, therefore it is the introduction that lays the gene pool for the further development of the work. The dramatic and swift theme is born from an opening monologue. Virtuosity and improvisation is the basis of composition. Fast passages, directed, now up, then down create tension, which then subsides, then gains new strength, raising the intensity of feelings to a completely new level of dramatic development.

High emotional temperature reaches its highest point in the code, as a symbol of an inconsolable storm. The peak voltage resembles the ninth shaft. The deep sound strikes the listener with gigantic power and passion, setting the stage for the fugue to enter.

Fugue thematically continues to develop the musical material of toccata, but has a more clear and clear structure. Fugue consists of three sections:

1. In the exposition section, the topic of the fugue is held alternately in three voices. It is worth noting that the answer is not typical for the work of Bach and is written in the key of the subdominant. Usually the answer is written in dominant tonality.
2. The middle section has the function of tonal development, so musical material is transposed into distant tonalities, which creates internal tension and allows expressing the drama and to some extent the tragedy of the music.
3. The final section states not only the basic tonality, but also the main idea of ​​the composition.

The unity of the cycle is achieved thanks to the improvisational warehouse of the fugue, its liveliness and swiftness. Some researchers see that the key in D minor is characteristic of Bach, like Suffering and Atonement. In this case, the bearer of the idea of ​​suffering is tokkata with its dramatic and pathetic exclamations. Fugue, for some time, relieves the tension created in toccata, which characterizes music as the redemption of sins.

It is necessary to take into account that the religion of Johann Sebastian Bach is not alien to religion, but, on the contrary, characteristic, because he lived in the Baroque era, at a time when music was a sacred craft. Emphasizes the religious character and the monumental and majestic timbre of the organ. The massive tool is the king of keyboards. The organ is the only instrument whose sound is compared to the divine and is not forbidden during church Catholic liturgies.

The use of music in film and television

The music of the great Johann Sebastian Bach was a real salvation for directors and animators already at the dawn of cinema, when cinema art only took the first steps and seemed to the public to be a real miracle. In 1940, the famous animator Walt Disney, who highly appreciated classical music, created the animated film "Fantasy". One of the leading roles as musical accompaniment was received by the famous Toccata and the Fugue by I.S. Baha. After the film adaptation of the work has become even more popular and famous. For domestic television, an organ composition is truly a landmark, since the program “The Man and the Law” began with the sound of the pathetic Toccata recitative.

• First player to get ready (2018)
• The Wonderful World of Gumball (2017)
• Lego Movie: Batman (2017)
• Looking for the perfect consonance (2016)
• Margarita (2015)
• Unrequited study (2015)
• When I was alive (2014)
• Babaduk (2014)
• End of the World 2013: Apocalypse in Hollywood (2013)
• Quartet (2012)
• Top Gear (2007)
• My heart stopped beating (2005)
• Aviator (2004)
• Riding the Giants (2004)
• Man and the Law (1970)

Organ prelude and tokkata in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach - is the eternal unshakable classic. The work proves that Bach’s music indisputably combines static and movement, strength and humility, fate and man. Architectural and monumental works help to display the full range of technical capabilities of the body.