Bach: Toccatas, Preludes and Fugues – St. Johannis Lüneburg

NORDSTOGA'S NINTH

In his ninth and tenth of a total of fourteen releases of Bach's collected organ works, Kåre Nordstoga pulls together much of what was not collected from the composer's side — preludes and fugues.

The double form prelude (or toccata) and fugue has been an established form of composition since the 1600s. The North Germans Dietrich Buxtehude and Georg Böhm made a powerful contribution to this contrastive style in which the freer first part and the more rigorous second part are united in a dynamic whole. The young Johann Sebastian harvested significant impressions from these two composers during his time in Lübeck and Lüneburg, and this album was recorded in Lüneburg.

Bach organized his chorale-based organ works in collections such as Orgelbüchlein and Clavier-Übung. But non-chorale-based works are not collected in a similar manner. These were composed over a longer period of time, from his youthful years in Arnstadt via Mühlhausen and Weimar to Leipzig. (In Köthen there was a focus on other instruments.) They were written for irregularly occurring occasions such as when Bach was consulted as expert in the inspection of a new organ, or when he auditioned for a new job.

He would sometimes pull up an older work and polish it into a new version that might be used to teach pupils in organ and composition in Leipzig. One point could be precisely the difference between the first rendering and an improved version. As Bach biographer Forkel wrote in 1802 regarding Bach's revisions: "Nothing can be as instructive as a comparison, for both an expert and an ardent student."

As for Bach's desire to constantly improve what he had written, Forkel wrote that he did it "to correct errors, to make what was good even better, and to make what was best the very best". The revisions can be more advanced than the first version, as, for example, the Fugue in D Major in BWV 532.

With respect to content and style, the preludes, toccatas and fugues cover a wide range, from the North German inspiration of Buxtehude to the Italian inspiration of Vivaldi's concertos, yet it is the inimitable musical expression of a Johann Sebastian Bach that holds them all together.

BWV 578 The Little Fugue in G minor and BWV 579 Fugue on a Theme by Corelli were written in Bach's youth. The Fugue in G minor is presumed to have originated during Bach's tenure as court organist in Weimar, where the organ was situated on the fourth(!) floor of the palace chapel in a heavenly realm high above the noble parishioners.

The Fugue on a Theme by Corelli is also from Weimar, composed when Bach was around twenty years old. The Corelli theme is from a trio sonata included by the Italian master in his opus 3 (1689).

Both fugues have two themes and show how the young Bach worked to become proficient in the art of the fugue, which he continued to develop to the very end of his life. His son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, wrote of his father that "even in his youth he became a strong and genuine fugue enthusiast (Fugist)".

Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 is for a large number of listeners the Bach work above all others. It is more improvisational in form than presumably any of the master's other organ works. Some have wondered whether it may have been written for solo violin. Others have voiced the opinion that because it is unlike anything else Bach composed, it was perhaps not written by him!

In the novel The Glass Bead Game (1943), Hermann Hesse inserted this Bach inspiration, a poetic vision of the power in this thunderous work from Bach's youth. (Bantam Books, translated by Alex Page, excerpt).

To a Toccata by Bach

Frozen silence.… Darkness prevails on darkness. One shaft of light breaks through the jagged clouds Coming from nothingness to penetrate the depths, Compound the night with day, build length and breadth, Prefigure peak and ridge, declivities, redoubts, A loose blue atmosphere, earth's deep dense fullness.

That brilliant shaft dissevers teeming generation into both deed and war, and in a frenzy of creation ignites a gleaming terrified new world. All changes where the seeds of light descend, Order arises, magnificence is heard In praise of life, of victory to light's great end.

Chorale Music from Weimar

The two partitas BWV 766 Christ, der du bist der helle Tag and BWV 767 O Gott, du frommer Gott presumably originate from the first years as court organist in Weimar, where Bach arrived in 1708. They are, compared with the later partita BWV 768 Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig, simpler and less organ-like, arising from a piano tradition without pedal. Thus they are also performed today on harpsichord.

The variations bear the legacy of Georg Böhm and Johann Pachelbel in their two-voiced pianistic elaboration with ornamentation, but they reveal a new boldness as regards the tradition. Both follow the text in the hymns from verse to verse with a rich spectrum of expression. Bach also wrote other organ arrangements based on these two chorales.

BWV 766 is a text by the 16th-century poet Erasmus Alber: Christus, der du bist der helle Tag, Von dir die Nacht nicht bleiben mag, Du leuchtest uns vom Vater her und bist des Lichtes Prediger.

The hymn in BWV 767 was written by Johann Heermann in 1730: O Gott, du frommer Gott, du Brunnquell guter Gaben, ohn den nichts ist, was ist von dem wir alles haben; gesunden Leib gib mir und dass in solchem Leib ein unverletzte Seel und rein Gewissen bleib.

— Torkil Baden · English translation: Jim Skurdall