The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, (BWV 565), is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fuguw that ends in a coda. Scholars differ as to when it was composed. It could have been as early as c. 1704. Alternatively, a date as late as the 1750s has been suggested. To a large extent, the piece conforms to the characteristics deemed typical of the north German organ school of the Baroque era with divergent stylistic influences, such as south German characteristics.
Despite a profusion of educated guesswork, there is not much that can be said with certainty about the first century of the composition’s existence other than that it survived that period in a manuscript written by Johannes Ringk. The first publication of the piece, in the Bach Revival era, was in 1833, through the efforts of Felix Mendelssohn, who also performed the piece in an acclaimed concert in 1840. Familiarity with the piece was enhanced in the second half of the 19th century by a fairly successful piano version by Carl Tausig, but it was not until the 20th century that its popularity rose above that of other organ compositions by Bach. That popularity further increased, for example, after its inclusion in Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’, until this composition became, by far, the best-known work of the 18th-century organ repertoire.
A wide, and often conflicting, variety of analyses has been published about the piece: for instance, in literature on organ music, it is often described as some sort of program music depicting a storm, while in the context of Disney’s Fantasia, it was promoted as absolute music, nothing like program music depicting a storm. In the last quarter of the 20th century, scholars such as Peter Williams and Rolf Dietrich Claus published their studies on the piece and argued against its authenticity. Bach scholars like Christoph Wolff defended the attribution to Bach. Other commentators ignored the doubts over its authenticity, or considered the attribution issue undecided.
In 1935, Hermann Hesse wrote a poem about the piece, Zu einer Toccata von Bach (“On a toccata by Bach”), which contributed to its fame. Recordings of BWV 565 that have appeared on popular music charts include Sky’s 1980 rock-inspired recording (No. 83 on Billboard, No. 5 on UK Singles Chart) and Vanessa-Mae’s 1996 violin recording (No. 24 on the Billboard).
In 1993, Salvatore Sciarrino made an arrangement for solo flute, recorded by Mario Caroli. A version for solo horn was arranged by Zsolt Nagy and has been performed by Frank Lloyd. In the mid-1990s, Fred Mills, then trumpet player for Canadian Brass, created an adaptation for brass quintet that became a worldwide standard for brass ensembles. 2-Unlimited’s 1994 hit “The Real Thing” uses BWV 565 and, in a list published by Classic FM and PRS for Music, was revealed to be among the best-selling pop singles to incorporate classical music.
