For my taste, I felt that the opening toccata could have been a little more robust, considering the size of the organ and hall, but, I'll not cast aspersions on Dr Neary. Many years ago he allowed me the supreme privilege of playing the Abbey organ - a lifetime's goal come true!
The Royal Albert Hall organ is simply stunning - This is a beautiful piece on the part of the organist and the orchestra. The 32' pipes on the organ can rattle your fillings - quite superbly. Bravo!
Although I prefer to hear this piece played only by a pipe organ, I was taken by the awesomeness of the place, adding to it the grand orchestra performance with Martin Neary at the organ, topped by the magnificent conclusion of this great piece! Bravo!!
Questa grandiosa Opera Sublime del Sommo J.S Bach è patrimonio universale.Grande Organista e grandiosa esecuzione orchestrale magistrale.Issimo.Questa è MUSICA.
"A meta e propósito da música é a glória de Deus e o refrigério da alma. Se algo não leva isso em consideração, não é verdadeira música, mas apenas gritaria e agitação diabólica". Johann Sebastian Bach
This is quite uninformed - a part of people never get chills from music, me included, which doesn't stand in the way of my appreciation and enjoyment of this wonderful art form.
I dunno if bach wanted it played that way... But that intro being all choppy and short everytime the phrase ends... Ruins the piece for me. And the rhythmical liberties taken by most classical musicians are over the top IMO
I wanted to hear a version with organ and orchestra. And I enjoy various interpretations of all styles of music even by lesser performers. Some of the comments reminded me of the film Pavarotti in China where he was giving serious instruction to some opera enthusiasts.
Such set up, such scenography to get the only available fool to massacre this magnificence of piece on the organ...♫♫♫ ♥♥ Stokowsky's rendition is waaaaaay better and happened almost 100 years ago.
Not good, especially the beginning is very bad, later, some tones are missing.. Ok, some parts are very good, but in summary it was not entirely successful.
This arrangement seems to me to be more show tune than I'm used to (Stokowski). It highlights voices in an interesting manner, but, to me, it lacks the power and emotional uplift I want. What a wonderous composer and intellect was J.S. Bach.
guess what kids, the organist played the tocatta according to whats written, not according to the popular version that every competition organist loves to emphasize at the intro section.
Thank you. I have all the CDs you mentioned and more than a dozen other Bach transcriptions, mostly of Stokowski. I don't have the Lyrita, isn't that performance on Chandos? I got the LP of that.
Organist played key notes far too short.... Especially at the beginning... On this organ, with a better organist this would have been sublime Shame on him
TonyBee the organist played the notes as written. there's a hold rest at the first 2 measures. "modern" organists like to ignore it and go to the next note immediately. they are all 16th notes in the tocatta section, not whole notes like what is percieved. research before looking like a complete ignorant asshat. usually i dont like to rip on ignorant and obviously undereducated comments, but come on, you cant fault a fricken organist on not reading his notes. HE READ AND PLAYED IT PERFECTLY TO ORIGINAL COMPOSITION. the orchestra's fugue section was also magnificently smooth. both this and the other posted t&f orchestration vid have good arrangements
The_Curl _Miester if i write out a composition, i personally would rather hear my music played as written. its disrespectful to the composer to put your own embellishments if its unnecessary, and doesnt add any content. concert organists today love to embellish, to look even more impressive. unnecessary, youre already using your entire body at breakneck speeds, on an instrument that is literally the building it sits in.
Ludwig van Beethoven Fair enough I would probs be the same unless the change is only minor and is something that enchances the music. But I can definitely understand where your coming from. I was trying to aim it at musicians that do not play with any emotion and are like robots, which alot of the time are the same people that play it exactly as written. But I definitely agree with you, you dont have to embellish it with your own changes to play with emotion, thats the job of your body and your soul, to bring out the emotion that the composer has written to the audience Glad we could come to an agreement:)
I actually rather liked the orchestration of the fugue (though I initially found it a bit destabilising!). The toccata, however, was absolutely dreadful to my ears.
Sure thing! From 0:33 to 3:18 is the toccata, and the rest of the piece is the fugue. How are they different? We first have to know that during most of the baroque times, except in France, titles for musical pieces weren't original: if your piece was a sonata and it was in F minor and it happened to be the second sonata you wrote, then its title would be Sonata No. 2 in F minor. The piece we're listening to here is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Following the previous logic, in the piece there are two sections, the former being a toccata and the latter, a fugue, and both are in D minor. Toccatas and fugues are two musical forms, so you cannot call a piece a fugue if it isn't one. - A toccata is pretty much a "formless" form, in that it sometimes sounds like it was improvised. There is generally less of a defined guideline (i.e. melody or melodic contour) in toccatas compared to, say, a rondo, which has a specific canvas (i.e. A-B-A-C-A-...). In this specific toccata, we can hear it very well, as the piece is divided in several chunks which more or less need to be together; we're not following and developing one melody throughout. The toccata form is somewhat similar to that of the prelude, although they are generally less developed melodically. - A fugue is an imitative form which takes one melody (called the subject) and makes it go from one voice to the other, essentially making it a game of question-answer. It is one of the hardest forms to write, as there are countless rules (i.e. counterpoint) that need to be respected for the piece to be a fully valid fugue. (There are full university courses that focus solely on those rules, so you can see how tedious it is!) A traditional fugue always starts with the subject being played in solo (in this video, from 3:19 to 3:24), after which a second voice picks it up ("answering" it) while the first voice continues by accompanying the answer (can you hear it in the video?). This goes on with more voices, and there are interludes during which the subject may not even be heard, but those also have their own rules. Each voice goes in and out (always restarting with the subject) during the whole piece, which may make it seem like there are a lot of voices when, in fact, their number is actually quite small (the fugue in this video has 4 voices: other than in the coda (the end), there are never more than 4 notes at once (in the original organ version of course!)). I hope the two forms are now clearer to you. Please don't hesitate to ask for more details if you're interested to know more! I wrote my thesis on Bach and, more specifically, on the Toccata and Fugue in D minor that's played here (the original organ version though). Have a good day! Cheers!
*+Samuel Labrecque* Wow... did I hit the jackpot then in asking you this question! Yes, I can hear the voices. I can see that it's a bit deceptive: thinking you hear more voices than there are. There are organ music videos on youtube where those voices are colour coded..fascinating stuff! They do a good job at showing how complicated as well as simple it is. Uhm.. if you know what I mean? I, of course, have to ask... why are the French so peculiar? Also is one of those ...baroque contemporaries, Jean Baptise Lully? (I'm quite uninitiated in all of this.) I remember this somewhat similarly... curly and bombastic piece: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs. Not that it's a Toccata or a Fugue, but the overal musical.. Baroque? I can hear the things you're describing, thanks! May I ask why you've picked this piece to write your thesis on? I was told this is considered to be one of the best, and I certainly like it. (It sounds epic, dramatic, emotional, and deep.) Do you have other pieces you like or think are good suggestions to listen to if one finds this one nice?
+daddyleon I'm happy that you found my answer satisfactory! It is indeed quite impressive how complex but also simple it sounds. I know exactly what you mean. I think those colour-coded videos are great, especially for fugues (where each voice has a colour) and pieces for orchestra (where each instrument has a colour), because they allow the listener to view precisely who does what at all times. If I get to teach a course on orchestration or counterpoint one day, I will definitely use some of those as examples! It isn't so much that the French baroque composers were peculiar, it has to do more with cultural differences than anything. Without being an absolute truth, the Germans seemed to focus more strongly on the form in itself while the French sought to characterise something with their music, and named their pieces accordingly. That doesn't mean, however, that the French weren't using forms. Quite on the contrary, a lot of their "characteristic" pieces follow forms pretty strongly (rondo, march, etc.). The pieces simply weren't named based on their form. Lully is indeed one of those composers, and he was a major figure of the French baroque, along with Rameau and Couperin. Although being in the early baroque period, a lot of Lully's pieces are named after their form, contrarily to some of his contemporaries. Even though it is loved my millions around the world, the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 annoys many an organist, not because it's a bad piece, but because of how often it is requested. As such, many simply do not play it anymore, or play it with resent to please their audience. (I am absolutely not one of those organists!) It is indeed considered one of the best by the audiences, but I don't know any organist or musicologist who would make such a strong claim. It is an effective piece, but it isn't musically as interesting as much of the rest of Bach's organ music. I decided to write my thesis on it because it is a piece I've loved since way before I even started playing the organ, and I found that while there are a lot of theories about it (e.g. it's not actually by Bach, it was initially written for a solo string instrument, it was written to test the capability of organs, etc.), there is actually very little comprehensive research (i.e. research encompassing many aspects) about it, which is what I aimed to do. Without a doubt, there is still a lot of research to be done on that piece alone, but it would have gone far beyond the scope of a thesis. I might come back to it someday. If you like the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, then you might enjoy those other organ pieces by Bach that convey a similar energy and emotion: - Prelude and Fugue BWV 548 in E minor ('The Wedge') - Toccata and Fugue BWV 538 in D minor ('Dorian') - Fantasia and Fugue BWV 542 in G minor - Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 in C minor By other composers: - Mozart: Fantasia in F minor K. 608 - Pachelbel: Prelude in D minor - Pachelbel: Ciaconna in F minor (the style is quite different, but it's a lovely piece!) You may also want to give a try to Bach's chorale preludes, which are quite different but just as good. Chorale preludes were used to put the service's chorale melody in the assembly's ear before the service started, which is why in many of them the melody is quite clear when it is played. Bach used the form to such an extent that many of his chorale preludes are recital-worthy pieces in themselves. I recommend the following to start with: - Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam BWV 684 - Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 737 - Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott BWV 721 - Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 699 Neither of the lists I just gave are exhaustive. They are just examples I could come up with on the top of my head. If you have any other question, please don't hesitate! Have a good day! Cheers!
I agree, I think Stokowski's version for example sounds a lot more refined, but, at the same time, powerful and epic, just like the original. Give it a listen: ruclips.net/video/i0nRPDfpbkY/видео.html
Not just this . . . ALL art will disappear ! I think about it often. But mention it to other people and they tell you that it could never happen here. Complacency rules.
Oh for heavens sake. For thousands of years people like you have predicted doom gloom death and despondancy and yet it has never happened. Get over yourself and lighten up
For my taste, I felt that the opening toccata could have been a little more robust, considering the size of the organ and hall, but, I'll not cast aspersions on Dr Neary. Many years ago he allowed me the supreme privilege of playing the Abbey organ - a lifetime's goal come true!
The Royal Albert Hall organ is simply stunning - This is a beautiful piece on the part of the organist and the orchestra. The 32' pipes on the organ can rattle your fillings - quite superbly. Bravo!
Happy Birthday to Johann Sebastian Bach Blessings and Hugs 💖💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕!
Although I prefer to hear this piece played only by a pipe organ, I was taken by the awesomeness of the place, adding to it the grand orchestra performance with Martin Neary at the organ, topped by the magnificent conclusion of this great piece! Bravo!!
Royal Albert Hall, the best place to hear such master piece!
Questa grandiosa Opera Sublime del Sommo J.S Bach è patrimonio universale.Grande Organista e grandiosa esecuzione orchestrale magistrale.Issimo.Questa è MUSICA.
...love, Love, LOVE this! ❤️
"A meta e propósito da música é a glória de Deus e o refrigério da alma. Se algo não leva isso em consideração, não é verdadeira música, mas apenas gritaria e agitação diabólica".
Johann Sebastian Bach
The organ and the orchestra is a masterpiece.
This is amazing.
9:21 gave me the chills. I LOVE this version.
Iv Liked This Classical Song Since Fantasia
not a song...
an orchestral work..
song has letter
If you don't get chills at 9:15 you have no soul
This is quite uninformed - a part of people never get chills from music, me included, which doesn't stand in the way of my appreciation and enjoyment of this wonderful art form.
@@vladistoichkov6814Gay
ABSOLUTELY great great version with the mighty organ and orchestra...
Many hours in front of a mirror illustrious MAESTRO
I dunno if bach wanted it played that way... But that intro being all choppy and short everytime the phrase ends... Ruins the piece for me. And the rhythmical liberties taken by most classical musicians are over the top IMO
Feels alot more bach
Well said !
I believe its marked Lagato on the score but music is not static
I totally agree. Pity though
Also this orchestration is wild and really strange
This must have sounded out of this world live.
0:33 Organ
3:19 Orchestra
Fugue part is amazing
I wanted to hear a version with organ and orchestra. And I enjoy various interpretations of all styles of music even by lesser performers. Some of the comments reminded me of the film Pavarotti in China where he was giving serious instruction to some opera enthusiasts.
Such set up, such scenography to get the only available fool to massacre this magnificence of piece on the organ...♫♫♫ ♥♥ Stokowsky's rendition is waaaaaay better and happened almost 100 years ago.
unfortunately he was not available to push the rebuilt organ. I actually like the Toccata
Leonard Slatkin that version of Henry Wood's Arrangement is Just Fine.
Teanks you so much is beatiful I very very happy congratulecion your friend BOB of Mexico.
Not good, especially the beginning is very bad, later, some tones are missing.. Ok, some parts are very good, but in summary it was not entirely successful.
That happens with classical music. Tempos vary piece to piece.
Sembra di vivere in un sogno ❤❤….
3:18 Fugue
This arrangement seems to me to be more show tune than I'm used to (Stokowski). It highlights voices in an interesting manner, but, to me, it lacks the power and emotional uplift I want. What a wonderous composer and intellect was J.S. Bach.
I'm sorry I didn't like the Toccata, however I did enjoy the Fugue.
caiocollalto I like the fuge to
Bravo!!!!
Stokowski transcription hands down.
But this is very interesting 🤔 for sure.
Can’t believe I’m just now stumbling across it.
Listen to the Ormandy transcription.
guess what kids, the organist played the tocatta according to whats written, not according to the popular version that every competition organist loves to emphasize at the intro section.
I agree with you. The Toccata is actually really good. I love that organ. This is the first proms thing I remember
Alistair Shaw you get a baby ludwig piano for agreeing. 🎹
I love it, it's so fun the way Slatkin does it here. Is this performance on CD?
Thank you. I have all the CDs you mentioned and more than a dozen other Bach transcriptions, mostly of Stokowski. I don't have the Lyrita, isn't that performance on Chandos? I got the LP of that.
Pobre Bach!!!!
este tipo de interpretaciones estaban bien para los años 50's del siglo XX; hoy ya no.
I know this type of organ is hard to play, but that guy has made some very poor choices at the beginning that made me stop it right away.
Fantasia Disney fun...
I think this was visualised more like a movie score, which doesn't make it bad at all
Here I come...
Organist played key notes far too short.... Especially at the beginning...
On this organ, with a better organist this would have been sublime
Shame on him
TonyBee the organist played the notes as written. there's a hold rest at the first 2 measures. "modern" organists like to ignore it and go to the next note immediately. they are all 16th notes in the tocatta section, not whole notes like what is percieved. research before looking like a complete ignorant asshat.
usually i dont like to rip on ignorant and obviously undereducated comments, but come on, you cant fault a fricken organist on not reading his notes. HE READ AND PLAYED IT PERFECTLY TO ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.
the orchestra's fugue section was also magnificently smooth. both this and the other posted t&f orchestration vid have good arrangements
The_Curl _Miester if i write out a composition, i personally would rather hear my music played as written. its disrespectful to the composer to put your own embellishments if its unnecessary, and doesnt add any content.
concert organists today love to embellish, to look even more impressive. unnecessary, youre already using your entire body at breakneck speeds, on an instrument that is literally the building it sits in.
Ludwig van Beethoven Fair enough
I would probs be the same unless the change is only minor and is something that enchances the music. But I can definitely understand where your coming from. I was trying to aim it at musicians that do not play with any emotion and are like robots, which alot of the time are the same people that play it exactly as written. But I definitely agree with you, you dont have to embellish it with your own changes to play with emotion, thats the job of your body and your soul, to bring out the emotion that the composer has written to the audience
Glad we could come to an agreement:)
Was this piece orginally for organ?
Yes
Harpsichord
The organ is far better than the orchestra, I would have preferred to hear just the organ. But it was decent enough.
A matter of opinion I suppose; wind orchestras play this piece truly wonderfully
It takes time to arrange this piece for a full orchestra. I love both versions. In fact this reminds me of Fantasia a little bit.
I actually rather liked the orchestration of the fugue (though I initially found it a bit destabilising!). The toccata, however, was absolutely dreadful to my ears.
If you don't mind, could you maybe explain what is the toccata and the fugue? I always thought it was 'just the name' of the piece.
Sure thing! From 0:33 to 3:18 is the toccata, and the rest of the piece is the fugue. How are they different? We first have to know that during most of the baroque times, except in France, titles for musical pieces weren't original: if your piece was a sonata and it was in F minor and it happened to be the second sonata you wrote, then its title would be Sonata No. 2 in F minor.
The piece we're listening to here is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Following the previous logic, in the piece there are two sections, the former being a toccata and the latter, a fugue, and both are in D minor. Toccatas and fugues are two musical forms, so you cannot call a piece a fugue if it isn't one.
- A toccata is pretty much a "formless" form, in that it sometimes sounds like it was improvised. There is generally less of a defined guideline (i.e. melody or melodic contour) in toccatas compared to, say, a rondo, which has a specific canvas (i.e. A-B-A-C-A-...). In this specific toccata, we can hear it very well, as the piece is divided in several chunks which more or less need to be together; we're not following and developing one melody throughout. The toccata form is somewhat similar to that of the prelude, although they are generally less developed melodically.
- A fugue is an imitative form which takes one melody (called the subject) and makes it go from one voice to the other, essentially making it a game of question-answer. It is one of the hardest forms to write, as there are countless rules (i.e. counterpoint) that need to be respected for the piece to be a fully valid fugue. (There are full university courses that focus solely on those rules, so you can see how tedious it is!) A traditional fugue always starts with the subject being played in solo (in this video, from 3:19 to 3:24), after which a second voice picks it up ("answering" it) while the first voice continues by accompanying the answer (can you hear it in the video?). This goes on with more voices, and there are interludes during which the subject may not even be heard, but those also have their own rules. Each voice goes in and out (always restarting with the subject) during the whole piece, which may make it seem like there are a lot of voices when, in fact, their number is actually quite small (the fugue in this video has 4 voices: other than in the coda (the end), there are never more than 4 notes at once (in the original organ version of course!)).
I hope the two forms are now clearer to you. Please don't hesitate to ask for more details if you're interested to know more! I wrote my thesis on Bach and, more specifically, on the Toccata and Fugue in D minor that's played here (the original organ version though).
Have a good day! Cheers!
*+Samuel Labrecque* Wow... did I hit the jackpot then in asking you this question!
Yes, I can hear the voices. I can see that it's a bit deceptive: thinking you hear more voices than there are. There are organ music videos on youtube where those voices are colour coded..fascinating stuff! They do a good job at showing how complicated as well as simple it is. Uhm.. if you know what I mean?
I, of course, have to ask... why are the French so peculiar? Also is one of those ...baroque contemporaries, Jean Baptise Lully? (I'm quite uninitiated in all of this.) I remember this somewhat similarly... curly and bombastic piece: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs. Not that it's a Toccata or a Fugue, but the overal musical.. Baroque?
I can hear the things you're describing, thanks!
May I ask why you've picked this piece to write your thesis on? I was told this is considered to be one of the best, and I certainly like it. (It sounds epic, dramatic, emotional, and deep.) Do you have other pieces you like or think are good suggestions to listen to if one finds this one nice?
+daddyleon I'm happy that you found my answer satisfactory! It is indeed quite impressive how complex but also simple it sounds. I know exactly what you mean. I think those colour-coded videos are great, especially for fugues (where each voice has a colour) and pieces for orchestra (where each instrument has a colour), because they allow the listener to view precisely who does what at all times. If I get to teach a course on orchestration or counterpoint one day, I will definitely use some of those as examples!
It isn't so much that the French baroque composers were peculiar, it has to do more with cultural differences than anything. Without being an absolute truth, the Germans seemed to focus more strongly on the form in itself while the French sought to characterise something with their music, and named their pieces accordingly. That doesn't mean, however, that the French weren't using forms. Quite on the contrary, a lot of their "characteristic" pieces follow forms pretty strongly (rondo, march, etc.). The pieces simply weren't named based on their form. Lully is indeed one of those composers, and he was a major figure of the French baroque, along with Rameau and Couperin. Although being in the early baroque period, a lot of Lully's pieces are named after their form, contrarily to some of his contemporaries.
Even though it is loved my millions around the world, the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 annoys many an organist, not because it's a bad piece, but because of how often it is requested. As such, many simply do not play it anymore, or play it with resent to please their audience. (I am absolutely not one of those organists!) It is indeed considered one of the best by the audiences, but I don't know any organist or musicologist who would make such a strong claim. It is an effective piece, but it isn't musically as interesting as much of the rest of Bach's organ music. I decided to write my thesis on it because it is a piece I've loved since way before I even started playing the organ, and I found that while there are a lot of theories about it (e.g. it's not actually by Bach, it was initially written for a solo string instrument, it was written to test the capability of organs, etc.), there is actually very little comprehensive research (i.e. research encompassing many aspects) about it, which is what I aimed to do. Without a doubt, there is still a lot of research to be done on that piece alone, but it would have gone far beyond the scope of a thesis. I might come back to it someday.
If you like the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, then you might enjoy those other organ pieces by Bach that convey a similar energy and emotion:
- Prelude and Fugue BWV 548 in E minor ('The Wedge')
- Toccata and Fugue BWV 538 in D minor ('Dorian')
- Fantasia and Fugue BWV 542 in G minor
- Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 in C minor
By other composers:
- Mozart: Fantasia in F minor K. 608
- Pachelbel: Prelude in D minor
- Pachelbel: Ciaconna in F minor (the style is quite different, but it's a lovely piece!)
You may also want to give a try to Bach's chorale preludes, which are quite different but just as good. Chorale preludes were used to put the service's chorale melody in the assembly's ear before the service started, which is why in many of them the melody is quite clear when it is played. Bach used the form to such an extent that many of his chorale preludes are recital-worthy pieces in themselves. I recommend the following to start with:
- Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam BWV 684
- Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 737
- Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott BWV 721
- Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 699
Neither of the lists I just gave are exhaustive. They are just examples I could come up with on the top of my head.
If you have any other question, please don't hesitate!
Have a good day! Cheers!
the toccata is being played to the music not busked.
A crustacean of a cerulean color
voila une belle version avec orchestre loin de stokovsi la c'est bien plus intelligent car l'orgue est présent
i dont know sound too much fast for me.
I don't like the organist's interpretation. But what do I know having heard this thousands of times live.
Yikes!!!
I don't care for the novelty of this arrangement.
Gillian Weir is much better on this piece... much much better!
sounds like a rushed and lazy runthrough ... missed the power and majesty of this masterpiece entirely.
I agree, I think Stokowski's version for example sounds a lot more refined, but, at the same time, powerful and epic, just like the original.
Give it a listen: ruclips.net/video/i0nRPDfpbkY/видео.html
if it´s already playing in the organ what´s the sense of the arrangment?
Stupid version...The majesty of the work is lost.
The end of most phrases is pretty bad played.
J.S.Bach meets Star Wars ......absolutely woeful ....what a waste all that talent and that beautiful organ.......
que horrible interpretación de la Toccata por el pésimo organista. es de las peores interpretaciones que he escuchado. Lástima
Amazingly..........HORRIBLE!
el principio es horroroso
Not at all awesome
All this will be no more after the islamisation of Europe. Very sad for the future of Europe and the path it's headed.😭
Simeon Thomas FGS shut up! Go and play wth your Lego.
Not just this . . . ALL art will disappear ! I think about it often. But mention it to other people and they tell you that it could never happen here. Complacency rules.
Oh for heavens sake. For thousands of years people like you have predicted doom gloom death and despondancy and yet it has never happened. Get over yourself and lighten up