Bach: Toccata and Fugue, BWV 565 - Tariq Harb, guitar

Guitarist Tariq Harb performs J.S. Bach's monumental Toccata and Fugue, BWV 565. This is an adaptation for solo guitar by Edson Lopes.

The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565, is a musical composition in two parts for organ, written sometime between 1708 and 1750 by Johann Sebastian Bach, and known for its majestic sound, dramatic authority, and driving rhythm. The piece is perhaps most widely known due to its appearance in the opening minutes of the 1940 Disney cult classic Fantasia, in which it was adapted for orchestra by the conductor Leopold Stokowski. It also has a strong association in Western culture with horror films; it was included in films such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), The Black Cat (1934) and The Phantom of the Opera (1962).

The first part of Bach’s piece is a toccata, the name of which is derived from the Italian toccare, “to touch.” It represents a musical form for keyboard instruments that is designed to reveal the virtuosity of the performer’s touch. Bach’s take on the toccata is typical in that it has many fast arpeggios and runs up and down the keyboard but otherwise is generally free form and gives the composer much latitude for personal expression. In Bach’s day, toccatas often served as introductions to and foils for fugues, setting the stage for the complex and intricate composition to follow.

The fugue — a technique characterized by the overlapping repetition of a principal theme in different melodic lines (counterpoint) — that is the second part of Bach’s composition reflects the particular popularity of the form during the late 1600s and early 1700s. Bach made much use of the fugue in his compositions, most famously in solo organ pieces such as this one but also in instrumental works and choral cantatas. This particular fugue is quite unusual in its form; it is a plagal fugue using plagal cadences as opposed to the authentic cadences that Bach usually employs. It also does not introduce the subject in all the voices one after the other in the beginning of the fugue. Instead, Bach slips in sequences in between the announcements of the subjects which is again quite unusual for a Baroque fugue. The fugue, with its accompanying toccata, is not only the best known of Bach’s many fugues but the most famous of fugues by any composer.

Performance: Tariq Harb
Transcription: Edson Lopes
Guitar: Douglass Scott, 2018
Strings: Savarez basses and Augustine Regel trebels
Audio and video: Drew Henderson
Location of recording: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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Tariq Harb teaches at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada: https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/tariq-harb.html

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