R E U T E R 8 2 2 . c o m

Broadband "highspeed" Internet recommended for this page, allow several minutes to download.
If using dial-up internet access allow approx. 15 minutes to download, 2 minutes or less on broadband.

Click the play button (right facing arrow) to listen after the file begins to download.

Tocatta, Adagio & Fugue in C Major - BWV 564

J.S. Bach

Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 is an organ composition by Johann Sebastian Bach, written in 1708 in Weimar. The autograph score simply bears the title "Toccata in C Major", but the piece has become known exclusively by this title. It is unique among Bach's organ works in interpolating a slow section between the prelude and fugue, although he had apparently been toying with the idea for years - the Prelude and Fugue in C Major BWV 545 exists in an alternate early version (transposed down to B-flat major) with what later turned up the as slow movement from the C major organ sonata.

Apart from its florid, quasi-improvised opening, the toccata almost entirely eschews the virtuosity typically associated with the genre, instead focusing very intently on the contrapuntal development of a few short motives treated in concertato style, with alternation between full and comparatively sparse textures corresponding to the tutti and solo groups of a concerto grosso.

The Adagio is written in two very different sections. The first features a gentle, aria-like melody in the right hand over a simple chordal accompaniment; the second, and much shorter, section, marked Grave, emphasizes chromatic progressions, suspensions, and dissonances.

The fugue is built on a striking, strongly violinistic subject in 6/8, and returns to the concerto-like style of the toccata, with very free, brilliant episodes and a virtuosic cadenza at the very end.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata,_Adagio_and_Fugue_in_C_major,_BWV_564

recorded/sequenced on the Reuter opus #822 pipe organ, June 8, 2007

return to previous page.