Toccatas

[Bryn]

Yes if it was ..hence the ? ..me personally I think it was . Even though there are stylistic elements that are not his ….it has the touch of the lion’s paw …just had a look at the Busoni again …not sure I’ve ever really got through it. He has a way of arranging things with the hands that make it more difficult than it needs to be but there’s a musical reason for doing so..

I'm not too worried, either. I do, however, rather like to hear putative violin solo reconstructions and enjoy the musicologists' exchanges on the matter.

[jayne lee wilson]

Agreed - about the only Schumann piece I don’t like that much. He had such sensitivity to chord voicing and in that piece it is abandoned for the sake of virtuosic display.

Schumann's Op.7 Toccata is just an elaboration of the Czerny Op.92, so don't be too hard on him. He wrote it for Clara, who had played the Czerny a great deal as a practice piece in her youth.

Try hearing the Czerny first, then the Schumann....all will be clear.....

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/piano-virtuosity-toccatas-giovanni-umberto-battel/u3jhmdzqphbxc

[Ein Heldenleben]

Schumann's Op.7 Toccata is just an elaboration of the Czerny Op.92, so don't be too hard on him. He wrote it for Clara, who had played the Czerny a great deal as a practice piece in her youth.

Try hearing the Czerny first, then the Schumann....all will be clear.....

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/pi.../u3jhmdzqphbxc

The voicing in the Czerny is better but the Schumann is musically way superior . Thing is concurrent thirds in both left and right hands should be banned as a cruel and unusual punishment both to the ears and the fingers. Chopin would never do it* which is why ,as a writer for the piano , he has no peer…

* except in one section of the etude in thirds where it is arranged to very cleverly avoid an over- rich texture.

[rauschwerk]

When it comes to the Prokofiev, I find Moura Lympany (a largely forgotten artist these days, it seems to me) excellent, also Maetti Raekallio if you want modern sound. Byron Janis, to my surprise, seems a little tame. There must be plenty of other fine recordings: I see Martha Argerich included it in her debut recital. I think I opened a score once and closed it very quickly!

[Serial_Apologist]

Mention has been made of the fine finale of Brahms 4, which would go on to influence quite a few, including Webern in his Op 1: one of the few Webern works constantly included as representative of the composer, safe for cautious listeners as it may seem, but which, either way, it is far from being. Another in the finale of Zemlinsky's Second Symphony of 1897 - strongly in both senses modelled on the Brahms but not lacking in its own individuality.

When it comes to the Prokofiev, I find Moura Lympany (a largely forgotten artist these days, it seems to me) excellent, also Maetti Raekallio if you want modern sound. Byron Janis, to my surprise, seems a little tame. There must be plenty of other fine recordings: I see Martha Argerich included it in her debut recital. I think I opened a score once and closed it very quickly!

There is of course Prokofiev's own piano roll of his Toccata, which, miraculously, just to say manages to keep in tempo, nothwithstanding tiny unsettling jerks in momentum suggesting either arthritic joints - (unlikely I would think, unless anybody knows better) - or an instrument suffering with terrible action having been used for the purpose!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHv919Pn8_w

[Jonathan]

The voicing in the Czerny is better but the Schumann is musically way superior . Thing is concurrent thirds in both left and right hands should be banned as a cruel and unusual punishment both to the ears and the fingers. Chopin would never do it* which is why ,as a writer for the piano , he has no peer…

* except in one section of the etude in thirds where it is arranged to very cleverly avoid an over- rich texture.

Schumann's original version of the Op.7 Toccata is worth a listen once in a while. It's entitled "Exercise" rather than Toccata and Florian Uhlig has recorded it.

Liszt's late Toccata S197a is a strange little work and is not too difficult.

[MickyD]

Interesting that the opening fanfare of Monteverdi's 'Orfeo' is labelled a toccata, too.

[jayne lee wilson]

Mention has been made of the fine finale of Brahms 4, which would go on to influence quite a few, including Webern in his Op 1: one of the few Webern works constantly included as representative of the composer, safe for cautious listeners as it may seem, but which, either way, it is far from being. Another in the finale of Zemlinsky's Second Symphony of 1897 - strongly in both senses modelled on the Brahms but not lacking in its own individuality.

There is of course Prokofiev's own piano roll of his Toccata, which, miraculously, just to say manages to keep in tempo, nothwithstanding tiny unsettling jerks in momentum suggesting either arthritic joints - (unlikely I would think, unless anybody knows better) - or an instrument suffering with terrible action having been used for the purpose!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHv919Pn8_w

The Brahms, Zemlinsky and Webern are Passacaglias of course, of a far stricter formal definition than toccata....broadly, "variations on a cantus firmus" or over a basso-ostinato, a ground bass....with the Brahms for example, you can count it out as you listen to each variation....
....bit trickier with Webern though...

I guess your comments on those should be on the recent variations thread....

[gradus]

Schumann's original version of the Op.7 Toccata is worth a listen once in a while. It's entitled "Exercise" rather than Toccata and Florian Uhlig has recorded it.

Liszt's late Toccata S197a is a strange little work and is not too difficult.

Thanks, I didn't know that and will try to find a recording.

[Braunschlag]

A different Schuman, William, 3rd Symphony last movement. Cracking fourth movement entitled Toccata. A real orchestral tour de force introduced discretely by the side drum tapping out the principal motif, Bernstein nails it on DG.

[Braunschlag]

Alternatively there’s a few interesting organ ones -
Koehne, Gothic Toccata, kind of minimalist but builds up well
Franc Schmidt - Toccata in C. One of those pieces that sounds straightforward but it’s a real technical challenge (which is why so few organists can play it properly

[jayne lee wilson]

HOT OFF THE PRESSES......

Track 5 on this wonderful New Release of Petrassi is an especially fine and imaginative Toccata, "based on the Frescobaldian model" but travelling far..... wide-ranging in pace, pitch, phrase and texture....
So there's a challenge for the pianists here....

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/petrassi-monologhi-various-artists/ao5daoay8yjqc

[Vox Humana]

Organists do toccatas big time and there are none finer than Duruflé's, though it's as difficult as they come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV74Uxhfzh4

[ahinton]

Yes, plenty of them in Sorabji, including four piano works entitled Toccata all of which are multi-movement ones and of which scores of the first three have been edited / typeset and that of the fourth is in progress; the first two have been recorded, by Jonathan Powell and Abel Sánchez-Aguilera respectively, the thrid is due its world première in the Netherlands next February at the hands of Abel Sánchez-Aguilera and the last has had extracts performed by its editor-in-progress Florian Steiniger. Further information at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk and via email on sorabji.archive@gmail.com .

[edashtav]

HOT OFF THE PRESSES......

Track 5 on this wonderful New Release of Petrassi is an especially fine and imaginative Toccata, "based on the Frescobaldian model" but travelling far..... wide-ranging in pace, pitch, phrase and texture....
So there's a challenge for the pianists here....

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/pe.../ao5daoay8yjqc

My copy has just arrived. Just time, so far to choose two tracks a wonderful, extended Elogio per un’ombra for solo violin, a work unknown to me which embraces, very convincingly, a wide range of styles and an extended caralogue of violin effects and the early Toccata which starts as Back to the (Italian) Baroque and then goes off at a personal tangent.

Both pieces are played with love and authority whilst the recordings are excellent

Thank you Jayne for your informed and enthusiastic recommendation.