J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

has a number of doubtful features. The oldest copy is in the hand of Johann Ringk
(1717-78), a second-generation student of Bach; there are none in the hand of any of
the main copyists, Walther, Krebs, Kirnberger, or Oley. 34 Even the title (‘Toccata con
Fuga’) is not an early eighteenth-century one, 35 and the abundance of tempo indications
is equally uncharacteristic. 36
So far as the music itself is concerned, oddities begin with the very opening. A
texture purely in octaves is very rare in organ music of the time (or since), except when
emulating ‘orchestral’ unisons. 37 Clearly, the opening is related to the single-line
manual flourishes that open many north German Praeludia (cf BuxWV 141 and 151,
BWV 564 and 566); but differences are as clear as the similarities. Quite apart from
the octave doubling (which might conceivably have originated with a copyist), there is
nothing in Buxtehude to compare both with its terse, rhetorical fragmentation and its
literal octave displacements. One is tempted to call it ‘recitative-like’, except that it is
even more unlike actual recitative.
Once the movement gets under way, rhetorical passages alternate with weighty
chords, roughly in the manner of a north German Praeludium; but again differences are
apparent. With the exception of brief flourishes such those as in bb.11, 18 and 21, the
passsagework is more figural, less free than would be expected. The ‘bariolage’ of
bars 12-15 clearly originates in string rather than keyboard techniques, however
effective it may be on the organ (Ex.1.4). 38
34 Ibid., 331. Williams also raises an entirely different question, that of which instrument it was written
for. This article was produced in conjunction with an edition of BWV 565 for unaccompanied
violin. Mark Argent has since followed Williams’ idea of a string original for BWV 565 in a
different direction, suggesting the five-string Baroque cello in ‘Decoding Bach 3: Stringing along’,
Musical Times 141/1872 (Autumn 2000), 16-23. On the other hand, Bernhard Billeter has suggested
a harpsichord original: ‘Bachs Toccata und Fuge d-moll für Orgel BWV 565: ein Cembalowerk?’,
Die Musikforschung 50/1 (Jan-Mar 1997) 77-80.
35 Williams, ‘BWV 565’, 331.
36 Ibid., 337.
37 Ibid., 331-32.
38 Ibid., 334.
53