Sunday Bach

The first half of this month has been relatively quiet, and things will begin to rev up in the Civic Center over the course of the coming week. San Francisco Opera is beginning its season with Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots; and the San Francisco Symphony will have its Opening Gala concert on Thursday, September 24, followed by the annual All San Francisco Concert on Friday. In that context I decided that this morning would be a good time to “take refuge” in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

I rather enjoy the luxury of having two “complete works” collections of recordings of Bach’s music. The first one I acquired was the Teldec Bach 2000 release. A few years later my wife happened on the Brilliant Classics collection, and I have been enjoying compare-and-contrast listening ever since! This morning I found myself revisiting the Brilliant CD of seven of the keyboard toccatas performed on the harpsichord by Menno van Delft, who was a student of Gustav Leonhardt for both harpsichord and organ.

Fragment of the opening measures of BWV 565, copied by Johannes Ringk (from the Wikimedia Commons Web page, public domain)

When “Bach” and “toccata” appear in the same sentence, most readers almost immediately think of BWV 565, the coupling of toccata and fugue in the key of D minor. That music has been performed in so many different settings that it has become almost a cliché (perhaps not even “almost”). As might be guessed, the word has its own Wikipedia page, whose first sentence is: “Toccata (from Italian toccare, literally, ‘to touch’, with ‘toccata’ being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers.”

However, there are seven more toccatas that Bach composed for harpsichord: BWV 910–916. Only two of these are in major keys: BWV 912 in D major and BWV 916 in G major. As the Wikipedia page puts it, all seven of them “are multi-sectional works which include fugal writing, rhetorical flourishes, recitative, and aria-like movements as part of their structure.” The Wikipedia page also cites that all of these toccatas emerged from Bach’s rich capacity of improvisation. As a result, I found that listening to the seven toccatas on the Brilliant CD was a refreshing experience, reminding me of how long it has been since I last played that album.

My only regret is that, to the best of my knowledge and/or memory, I have not had a chance to listen to any of those “seven other” toccatas in performance!