Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564
- Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564
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 as the slow movement from the C major organ sonata.
Though the melodic material is purely Bach's, the opening of the toccata has some distinct similarities of style and structure to the opening of the Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C major (BuxWV 137) of Dietrich Buxtehude, whom Bach had visited only a few years earlier, and whose music inspired Bach's style to a degree at that time. But after its florid, improvisation-like opening, the toccata almost entirely eschews the virtuosity typically associated with the genre, focusing for the rest of its length 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.
Busoni wrote a well-known transcription for the piano.
See also
* Other Toccatas and Fugues
External links
* [http://www.classical-scores.com/free/bach-Toccata,%20Adagio%20et%20Fugue%20en%20Do%20majeur%20%20BWV%20564-idparteng-980.html Free sheet music] from classical-scores.com
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