Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Performer: Pieter-Jan Belder
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Brilliant Classics
Catalogue: 96059
Release: 2020
Size: 459 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Toccata in F-Sharp Minor, BWV 910
02. Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911
03. Toccata in D Major, BWV 912
04. Toccata in D Minor, BWV 913
05. Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914
06. Toccata in G Minor BWV 915
07. Toccata in G Major, BWV 916
A Toccata (from Italian Toccare, to touch) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard instrument, featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer’s fingers. Originating in Renaissance Italy (Frescobaldi and others) the Toccata travelled North and in Bach’s (1685-1750) time it was an important form of keyboard writing. Bach’s seven toccatas are highly intricate and elaborate works in free, quasi-improvisatory style, demanding a high level of virtuosity.
This new recording is part of the Bach Project by Pieter-Jan Belder, the recording of the complete keyboard works.
Pieter-Jan Belder is one of the world’s foremost keyboard players, with an astonishing number of CD’s to his name: the complete Scarlatti Sonatas, Bach keyboard works, Rameau, Soler, Duphly, Marais, CPE Bach, Corelli, Purcell, Telemann, the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book..to be continued. Critics praise his versatility, his innate feeling for style, his impeccable technique: “Superb keyboard artistry and consummate technique”(Musicweb), “alive, fresh-sounding and thoroughly engaged..” (Fanfare), “The most vital Bach performances of the moment” (Volkskrant).
The term toccata stems from the early Baroque. In the hands of Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann Jacob Froberger, it signified an extended piece that consisted of several contrapuntal sections that were headed by a brilliantly figured introduction, full of virtuoso flourishes. The primary aim of the toccata in the hands of Bach’s forebears such as Schmelzer and Biber was to dazzle and astonish listeners.
This was the tradition that the youthful Bach inherited and embellished in his unique way. All the toccatas on this album probably date from the composer’s period in service to the ducal court at Weimar, in the first decade of the 18th century. Composed while still in his twenties, they are young man’s music, designed both to impress and delight his listeners, both by the facility of his invention and no less by the virtuosity of his performance. BWV910 is built to an especially grand design of two contrasting fugues, the second modelled on a refined French chaconne which recalls some of the composer’s earliest masterpieces such as the C minor Passacaglia for organ and the Cantata BWV12, “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen”, the ground bass of which is almost identical to the fugue subject.
Pieter-Jan Belder’s reputation in Bach is securely established.