Bach & Brahms

Program note

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564, was originally composed for organ, probably during his years in Weimar. Its three-part design is unusual among Bach’s organ works and reflects the influence of the Italian concerto, with contrasting fast, slow, and fast movements. Ferruccio Busoni, whose lifelong engagement with Bach produced some of the most ambitious piano transcriptions in the repertoire, arranged the work for piano in 1900.

The Intermezzo, corresponding to Bach’s Adagio, offers a striking contrast to the virtuosity of the opening Toccata. A lyrical, ornamented melody unfolds above a steady, continuo-like accompaniment, giving the music an almost vocal character. The movement gradually darkens and leads into a brief Grave, where chromatic harmonies, suspensions, and dissonances create an atmosphere of unusual intensity before resolving.

The Fugue immediately changes the character. Written in 6/8 and in four voices, it begins with a lively subject distinguished by unexpected rests and a playful rhythmic profile. Its countersubject fills the spaces left by the fugue theme, creating an animated dialogue between the voices. As the contrapuntal texture develops, the music combines Bach’s structural precision with a buoyant, almost dance-like energy. In Busoni’s transcription, the piano assumes the breadth and sonority of the organ while exploiting its own range of articulation, color, and dynamic contrast.

Brahms’ Op. 117 is the smallest of the late sets, a triptych of pieces that are quietly introspective and gentle in mood. Each of the three pieces shares the character of a lullaby, and in fact the first piece, in E-flat major, expressly invokes a Scottish lullaby, an excerpt of which Brahms provides at the heading of the piece. The excerpt from the poem “Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament” is translated as “Sleep softly, my child, sleep softly and well! — It breaks my heart to see you weep.” In German, the text almost perfectly synchronizes with the simple opening lullaby theme. The central section, darker in tone and more stirring in rhythmic activity, may point to the “weeping” of the child in question. The subsequent two intermezzi are equally evocative, although they share no poetic references. Though all three pieces are in ternary form — the same A-B-A form seen in the Op. 116 pieces — the second intermezzo, in B-flat minor, comes tantalizingly close to sonata form in its construction. It is important to remember that there are no rules or guidelines for the genres of these pieces, and Brahms’s experimentation with form, and with the mixing of forms, is partly what makes these pieces so fascinating.