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When we talk about Johann Sebastian Bach, the term ”toccata” immediately brings to mind the most famous of all his compositions, the very icon of his music, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ BWV 565, one of those compositions of which even people who have never taken any interest in ”classical” music have heard the memorable incipit at least once. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor is merely the most famous of the many works that bear this title found throughout Bach’s impressive catalogue.
Alongside the organ toccatas, the catalogue that Wolfgang Schmieder first published in 1950, source of the famous abbreviation BWV that traditionally accompanies all the works of the Kantor, included seven more toccatas for keyboard instruments (harpsichord or clavichord), numbered BWV 910-916.
Bach scholars almost unanimously ascribe these works to Bach’s youth and believe that he wrote them during his years in Weimar (1[zasłonięte]708-17) or perhaps even earlier, and that, unlike other works of his, he never collected them in an organic collection. No autograph manuscript of any of these works has come down to us; the main sources are therefore coeval manuscripts which are certainly reliable, and there are no doubts about the authenticity of the compositions, whose genuinely Bachian character is, indeed, evident at first listening.
As Alberto Basso writes in his Frau Musika (vol. 1, Page 504), ”the abundance of sources is a clear sign of the diffusion that these works enjoyed among Bach’s pupils and followers, also on account of the quality of the prototypes of concerto form that the toccatas present, with their complex structure, mixture of different styles, based on contrasting rhythms and solutions and on marked dynamic oppositions.
In fact, it is the concerto principle that dominates with its dialogue between soli and tutti, but with ample room for free invention in the style of the toccata ”passeggio” or with strict respect for fugue style.” | |
