{"id":3560,"date":"2005-11-05T12:08:38","date_gmt":"2005-11-05T20:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/11\/05\/toccata-and-fugue-in-d-minornot-bach\/"},"modified":"2019-12-19T14:59:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T22:59:05","slug":"toccata-and-fugue-in-d-minornot-bach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/11\/05\/toccata-and-fugue-in-d-minornot-bach\/","title":{"rendered":"Toccata and Fugue in D Minor&#8230;not Bach?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:7496,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.post-gazette.com\\\/pg\\\/05303\\\/597490.stm&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.post-gazette.com\\\/pg\\\/05303\\\/597490.stm&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7497,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253FselectedItemId%253D74020853%2526playListId%253D74021042%2526s%253D143441%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7498,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewArtist%253FartistId%253D63734%2526s%253D143441%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7499,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253Fs%253D143441%2526playListId%253D74021042%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s something interesting I hadn&#8217;t run across before &#8212; apparently there are strong arguments that Bach&#8217;s famous organ piece &#8220;Toccata and Fugue in D Minor&#8221; not only wasn&#8217;t originally written for organ&#8230;but likely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/pg\/05303\/597490.stm\" title=\"Post-Gazette: A haunting tune, but is it really Bach's?\">wasn&#8217;t even written by Bach at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  The clues lie in the music. For one, Bach&#8217;s manuscript copy of the Toccata &#8212; the handwritten original &#8212; is lost, if it ever existed. That means attribution can&#8217;t be certain; it&#8217;s akin to trying a murder case without a dead body.<\/p>\n<p>  Like a good mystery, the sources are questionable, too. The earliest copy of the Toccata was done by a man with a reputation of passing off spurious works under Bach&#8217;s name.<\/p>\n<p>  However, the biggest questions arise when the Toccata is examined stylistically.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;It is a little worrying when literally the first and last notes of a piece of music raise doubts,&#8221; writes Peter Williams in a seminal article about the Toccata in the journal Early Music in 1981.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Neat stuff. Part of what caught my eye was this passage:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Scholars now think the Toccata was originally a violin piece Bach transcribed.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;If you know the piece you can just see it was written for the violin,&#8221; says Don Franklin, a Pitt musicologist specializing in the composer. &#8220;It has idiomatic figuration for the violin [and] the initial statement of the fugue subject can easily be played on the D string, crossing over to touch the G string.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  The opening of the Toccata, too, is violin-like, offering &#8220;the solo violin an opportunity to drop down through its four strings,&#8221; writes Williams. And there are other nuances that add up to an organ piece covering up its origins.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253FselectedItemId%253D74020853%2526playListId%253D74021042%2526s%253D143441%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"iTMS: Vanessa-Mae: The Violin Player: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor\">One of my favorite versions of the piece<\/a> is by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewArtist%253FartistId%253D63734%2526s%253D143441%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"iTMS: Vanessa-Mae\">Vanessa-Mae<\/a> off her fourth album, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253Fs%253D143441%2526playListId%253D74021042%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"iTMS: Vanessa-Mae: The Violin Player\">The Violin Player<\/a>&#8220;. While decidedly <em>not<\/em> a traditional interpretation (Bach&#8217;s original manuscripts are notably devoid of notations for samples and drum machines), it is incredibly well done, and one of the first times I&#8217;d heard the piece as a solo violin performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s something interesting I hadn&#8217;t run across before &#8212; apparently there are strong arguments that Bach&#8217;s famous organ piece &#8216;Toccata and Fugue in D Minor&#8217; not only wasn&#8217;t originally written for organ&#8230;but likely wasn&#8217;t even written by Bach at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2035],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-3560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}