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Toccata and Fugue in F minor - (2010)
for organ
for Stefan Stürzer
My wife and I took a weekend trip to Magdeburg to visit my friend Manuel Rosales, who was voicing some sample pipes for a new organ to be built for the Remter of the Magdeburger Dom. His company, Rosales Organ, is partner in this work with the firm, Glatter-Götz Orgelbau in Owingen. The managing director, Stefan Stürzer, was working alongside Manuel to set the voicing samples, and thereafter we all toured the organ in the Dom itself, each of us playing some. We attended an amateur performance of Brahms' Requiem in the London edition, with piano-four hands, as conducted by Barry Jordan, and enjoyed dinner at a Spanish restaurant nearby. During this late afternoon and evening, Stefan volunteered his "favorite" key and form for a work I proposed to write. In the morning we also took in the organ at the Cathedral of Saint Sebastian played by Matthias Mück, before heading home to Berlin on the train. It was an enjoyable weekend of music and old and new friends. This toccata and fugue are then the result of crossing paths with Stefan.
The toccata opens with a pedal flourish, taken up by the manuals. Throughout the minor key remains in the melodic minor, without reference to major dominant as would be more normal in earlier periods of music, all the while the gestural elements refer back to the Baroque era.
The fugue subject is lightly related to the opening pedal flourish, the octave C's separate from the diatonic run down, and is stated in answer at the dominant minor with a broad augmentation in the pedal. The head motive is brought back in the relative major before reasserting the minor tonality and a final cadence, decorated as is the toccata's end.
Stefan Stürzer
The philosophy statement on Glatter-Götz Orgelbau's website, www.gg-organs.com, reads in part, "...we are great idealists, who regard our work as a cultural contribution." I think this notion admirable, for organ design, building and maintenance are a part of a long and large cultural and artistic tradition of the world which should be defended, supported and grown yet further. Their partnership with Manuel Rosales, http://www.rosales.com, has brought to being many fine new instruments, and it is my pleasure to call such creative artists and craftsmen friends.
5 pages, circa 4' 00" - an MP3 demo is here:
The score is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this organ score.
