A little piece for Halloween (All Hallows Eve)

JS Bach was such a prolific composer across a wide variety of instruments it is hard to stay on the topic of organ music too long.  Nonetheless, I was listening recently to the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) and it made me remember when my kids were young that I used to set up the stereo speakers near the front door and play this in a loop on Halloween.  It was dark outside and there was a stuffed man (pine straw jammed into pants and shirt) hanging from the tree in the front yard.  We had a headstone in the flower bed and I dressed up as the silent scream.  Kids would tremble as we gave out the candy!

This piece starts out stark and bold and then goes through the middle section where, the various hands play melody voices on top of one another and the repeating off beat notes that stand out so well against the main theme.

There is a lot of shifting back and forth between loud / stark to subtle and flowing.  The piece finally finishes up with a strong combination of runs punctuated with powerful chords.

Interestingly, there is some question as to the authorship of the piece.  Parts of the themes come from Pachabel, but borrowing themes was common as a way to bring new versions of themes into broader interpretation.  Most of the issues are attributed to several structural issues of the piece not being in keeping with the traditions of the time when Bach was alive.  I like to believe that such a creative individual was into experimentation and was simply unique.

The following version of the piece demonstrates one interesting thing about classical music in general and organ music in particular and that is the interpretation of both tempo and tone.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor - Stewart Foster

Take a good trip through YouTube's various versions and you will hear a wide variety of styles for this particular piece.  Nonetheless the same dark and foreboding feeling is invoked by all of them.  This particular video is really nice because of the complexity of the organ being played and the way that you see how the organist works - turning pages, adjusting his bench, utilizing his feet only at times and jumping between the different keyboards which have been set up to provide different tones from the pipes.