[Smt-talk] Toccata & Fugue in D minor

[Eliot Handelman]

Hi,

Peter Williams intriguingly conjectured that the piece may have been by 
a composer
of Friedemann's period. He suggested that the composer was highly skilled,
note, e.g., the subdominant answer in the fugue, and that the simplicity 
was voulu. I felt that Williams was
essentially shelving the question whether it fact had been written
by Friedemann, and I wonder how plausible this is, given that David
Humphreys attributes BWV 534 (the organ prelude & fugue in f minor) to 
Friedemann. (I haven't read his
article yet).

There seems to be a great mystery wrapped up with Friedemann. He was 
Sebastian's heir and prize,
supposedly more talented than all the rest, and possibly received more 
direct training from Sebastian
than the other sons. Figuring put some new attributions might, in the 
long term, help cast some light on
Sebastian's pedagogical conception of music, and so to some aspects of 
his musical thought.  That's a very
big conjecture, but up the stakes in attribution studies.

Incidentally there was a recent study using data-mining techniques on a 
number of Bach works,
I believe in the jorunal of JS Bach studies. Sorry for lack of citations 
here -- all of this is really just a hobby.

On 03/12/2010 8:27 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
> Has anyone made a conjectural reconstruction, for violin solo, of the 
> Toccata & Fugue?
Yes, transposed to g minor, but I forget who.


-- eliot
-------------
Eliot Handelman Ph. D.
Music & AI
Montreal






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