J.S. Bach - Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 {Peter Hurford}

[@Yhuangae]

The harmony in the fantasia is absolutely wild and must-hear. The rapidness of key change is astounding. The use of enharmonic equivalence is insane!

[@kinggeorgechurchill]

Indeed, I was enraptured by the 6 consecutive subdominant key changes and the use of enharmonic equivalence which helps in turning to the triple dominant key.

[@louise_rose]

One of the boldest and most powerful pieces Bach ever composed fo the organ, and it seems to suggest a human opening his/her heart and soul to the Lord looking for assurance and answers to pressing questions after years of tribulation. The work was written around 1720, at the end of the Great Northern War which also involved some German states and indeed one of the composer's brothers, it comes after many years of war and plague. Towards the end of the Fantasia, we hear faith and hope being restored in the middle of the wilderness, in the defiant final chords.

[@grahamnancledra7036]

I've absolutely no idea what "enharmonic equivalence" is and I'm fairly confident Bach had never heard of it too. "Enharmonische Äquivalenz" - He'd throw the phrase back in your face as he had another beer. It's a term used by so called musicologists to show off. To Bach this was normal writing of what his heart and head said was correct and Apt. Bach was a wonderful show off and he shows off wonderfully in this glorious work. Enharmonic Equivalence be damned. This is just the thing that turns off lovers of the Baroque and Classical Music. Musicologists - HUH!

[@PaulVinonaama]

@@grahamnancledra7036 ??? What the hell? Why are you so angry? Enharmonic equivalence is a very simple concept that means that a note introduced as E-flat, for example, turns into D-sharp, which has the same sounding pitch but functions differently. Certainly Bach new this concept and many more advanced ones that were part of his craft.

[@grahamnancledra7036]

@@PaulVinonaama It's because of the bull that musicologists like you spout out about the music. The overwhelming members of an audience at a concert don't care two figs about what you call these names of sounds and so on. They, like me, don't know about it, and like me care even less. All we want is to hear the natural, wonderful music, without carp. The way composers like Bach did NATURALLY, and that's the wonder of Bach, and Mozart and the other greats composed their music. Naturally, nor sitting down as they wrote their scores thinking what about a Enharmonic Equivilance here or god knows whatever names you have for this carp! Natural, as comes from the heart and head.

[@FighterFred]

How someone can compose somthing like this is a mystery. Bach is a miracle.

[@mullenenterprises]

@@langschwerts no fucking way, i understand that bach could improvise stuff beyond imagination, probably better than virtually anyone to this day, but if youre telling me he improvised even the first minute of the fugue note-for-note i wouldnt believe you

[@Mackattack1080]

@@mullenenterprises he famously did…

[@louise_rose]

According to tradition, some of the groundwork for the fantasia was laid out when Bach improvised on an organ in Hamburg in 1720, during "auditions" for a post as organist and music director in the city. Bach ultimately didn't get the post, but he kept the piece he had improvised in mind and developed it further. It's one of his boldest instrumental works, with the amazing, stark open-chord harmonics and the huge dynamic shifts. The journey in the music from pain and grief at the opening towards renewed hope and faith at the triumphant/defiant ending just before the six-minutes mark is very moving (that final chord can be voiced in different ways, both in major and in minor)

[@camfg8908]

When you dedicate your life to something, you can do miracles

[@PointyTailofSatan]

I have played this organ many times. For Bach it's just incredible! It's a Casavant masterpiece! Only 25 stops, pure tracker, and no combination action. Also the first Casavant with a ruckpositiv behind the organist's back. Just a few coupler toe controls. So I have had a few non-musical friends frantically working stops for me. lol. But the voicing and church acoustics are perfect. Bach himself would have loved this organ. It's like a magnet for famous organists passing through Toronto. It's also only a few blocks away from another church where Glenn Gould recorded the Art of Fugue on the organ. Sadly, that organ (another great Casavant!) died in a fire many years ago.

[@NormanOBrown-yz8qb]

Thank you for these insights, PointyTailofSatan!

[@PointyTailofSatan]

@@NormanOBrown-yz8qb This is the organ . pipeorgandatabase.org/static/organ_images/1606/a61c7ecb-ad1c-44e7-a49d-9d98134a6377_Toronto.OurLadyofSor.1965CasavantFr.20131221.154033.jpg

[@dedede5586]

0:37 the greatest buildup of all time

[@marcelobrunorodrigues7630]

I may admit that a book that aided me to understand better the harmonies inside each note of the scales and quick passages is the organ manual of Joachim Hess (I have an original exemplar of the 5th edition dated from 1792).

[@marcelschroeder7313]

I am beginner at piano and i love Bach. As s.o. wrote, composing this is a miracle but also playing.

[@georgefelty6357]

I can remember all the years that I have played this piece and always get new insights!

[@yeongjunlee7810]

6:04

[@jakestreamer6416]

thanks friend, i was looking for the fugue

[@lucasc1035]

gracias!!

[@TimondeNood]

This work is pure bliss so is its performance, the fugue is just overwhelming! Thanks for the upload!

[@-msssrhmrydy12988]

That's exactly it! Pure bliss, couldn't have said it better myself. I LOVE YOU J. S. Bach, thank you so much for gifting us all with such amazing musical pieces.

[@iankemp1131]

A brilliant performance of a brilliant piece, my favourite of all Bach's organ works. To me Bach really lets himself go in the Fantasia and underlines that he is not just a dry academic composer. Peter Hurford captures that uninhibited quality - would one almost call it Bach "headbanging"?! - that very few other organists quite manage.

[@doubledee9675]

My not-quite-favourite of his organ pieces. That role is filled by the fugue from the little E minor.

[@louise_rose]

It's a favourite of mine too, and the fantasia seems to be a piece where a man is pleading with God: the music really feels like the Human and the Divine coming face to face, or Time and Eternity. Those wide block chords sections sound like an illustration to the words of the Bible: "A Thousand years are alike to a Day for the LORD, and a Day like a Thousand Years".

[@dialoghi3261]

Well... listening to this masterpiece simply recalls every composer that they will never be able to achieve such a level :-) Sad but true, Bach's counterpoint is simply unsurpassed. But there is room for other styles 😀

[@dariogiorgiutti9418]

Very nice stops selection, and the typical phrasing of Hurford, always bright and clear. It's funny how he makes sound every organ like a Rieger!!

[@gerardbegni2806]

Good sense of the registation which underlines the construction of the work. A declamatory style perfectly suited to the fantasy. A great rendition.

[@jamesrmcgalliard137]

Maybe my favorite organ piece, ever.

[@JoEbY-X]

Two great harmonic moments: 2:19 A combination Italian and German augmented 6th! 11:40 First two 16ths and you get a cross relation diminished octave AND major 7th. Same interval but different, giving the most deliciously dissonant predominant chord.

[@hcab14]

itilian isn't just the version without a 5th ? The harmonic thing I see is the German aug 6th on a dominant ped

[@JoEbY-X]

@@hcab14 German aug 6th has Eb-G-Bb-C# resolve to D-F#-A-D. Italian has Eb-G-G-C#, so not just no 5th, but a doubled 3rd that resolve in contrary motion yielding D-F#-A-D. I was actually kind of stretching calling these either but I did like how it has the parallel 5th of the German and the doubled thirds resolving in opposite motion of the Italian all in one chord.

[@hcab14]

@@JoEbY-X oh ok I see thank you for your answer, I love harmony it is so interesting !

[@dzinypinydoroviny]

It sounds kind of unusual for Bach. Sounds like a chord Beethoven would use, however Bach I would expect to write it with an e natural.

[@louise_rose]

Hurford plays the massive final chord of the fantasia in major, but it can be voiced in both major and minor. I prefer when it is played in open-chord G minor (Walcha and Marie-Claire Alain, fpr example, did that) capturing a sense of renewed hope following great losses, tragic but affirmative at the same time.

[@stephensoubbotin1015]

Now Thats What I Call Music! 542!

[@marcopent6919]

divino Bach!

[@payasarraf]

This was an improvisation?! Amazing

[@chateauferret]

No, it's a composed work.

[@alejandromosquerasouto6614]

El sumo sacerdote de la Belleza, Bach. Excelente Hurford

[@mmbmbmbmb]

Thank you!

[@АлександрЯрков-ш2з]

Браво грандиозно музыка супер

[@tepmich]

WUNDER !!! Tepper Michael.

[@adanayup9268]

Es una joyita,desafortunadamente cada vez resulta muy complicado escuchar conciertos de órgano...

[@josedomingosgiffonirosa8362]

Uma das minhas composições prediletas do gênio inconteste de Bach. Não pela grandiosidade como na pbra em Aminor mas oela beleza e felicadeza das melodia s.

[@marcelobrunorodrigues7630]

I only regret that he didn't did a thing I learned in Brazil: the stop crescendo in the four times descending scales. In other words I'm saying to you the detail that Édouard Commette and André Marchal did in their recordings.

[@александрчерников-й6к]

Спасибо Вам от всей России за доставленное Удовольствие. Алекс.

[@stuartmclaren2402]

Another lovely performance. I have always liked the late Slovakian Organist Ivan Sokol who plays this work in this vein. Like Sokol, Hurtford gets a lovely bell like sound from the organ with all the parts ie manuals and pedal crystal clear. Check out Sokol' s recordings on you tube.

[@louise_rose]

I first heard this played by the late great Helmut Walcha, a majestic recording taken from his 1960s set of Bach's (near-)complete organ works. Walcha's sense of rhythmic clarity and visionary power can't be beaten I think, that version is a statement as eternal as the work itself, but this one is also an excellent take on the famous BWV 542. :)

[@RobvanderHilst]

Bach's Fantasy in G minor, the counterpart of his equally dramatic Chromatic Fantasy for harpsichord (origin: Weimar II), which is here exhibited in a predominantly very loud manner on the large monumental Schitger organ in Groningen (as is usually the case, unfortunately), would this be in accordance with the rhetorical nature of the composition? NO. The fact that the essentially separate Fantasy in G minor (with only the modal signature B flat) is also combined here with Bach's equally separate Fugue in G minor (with two tonal signatures, B flat and E flat, and which is based on the Dutch folk song 'Ik ben gegroet' [which was the personal theme song of Bach's older colleague-organist and -composer from Hamburg Johann Adams Reincken, who was originally Dutch by the name of Jan Adamszoon Reinken] can be understood as a form of modern accommodation to ingrained playing habits. Original composition manuscripts of both works have not been handed down. The vast majority of 18th century copy manuscripts, however, perform both organ works separately. In only a few copy manuscripts do both appear to be combined. Bach did later add a chromatically grounded (newly composed) Fugue to the Chromatic Fantasy for harpsichord during his Leipzig tenure. Such an extension of a one-movement work as the Fantasy he almost certainly did not tackle, the Fantasy for organ remained single, became not a diptych like the ChromatiC Fantasy. Bach composed the free Fugue in g minor, with its overwhelming virtuoso bravura touch in Cöthen, with a view to an organ audition in the autumn of 1722 in Hamburg because of a vacancy for organist of the St. Jacobi Church in the wealthy, bustling North German port city Hamburg. Eventually Bach, having arrived in Hamburg, quickly withdrew as a candidate for the organist vacancy, Among other things, as it only became apparent on the spot, because of the limited scope that 37-yearsc old Bach - versatile composer and ambitious performing artist - was allowed in and outside the St. Jacobi Church in the musically very dynamic portcity. Hamburg was the only city in Germany to had a civic operahouse 'at the Goosemarket' that was co-founded by the aforementioned Johann Adams Reincken, who as a brilliant organist of the prominent St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg was considered the 'music pope' for years of the entire city. Bach if organist of the Jacobi Church was supposed to function within precisely defined lines and not at all outside of them. Bach had no interest in this at all, also from a financial point of view, or in other words: exit Hamburg. With as a lasting memory in this failed jobapplication adventure: the Fugue in G minor, based on the Dutch folk song 'Ik ben gegroet' so cherished by good old Johann Adams Reincken.

[@mydogskips2]

That chord at 5:54 sure sounds like a major chord to me; am I not seeing the B natural accidental, or are my ears deceiving me?

[@mw11stuff]

The Barhenreiter edition says a b natural which is probably what Mr Hurford is using. I've viciously scrubbed out the accidental in my copy!

[@andrewrichesson8627]

Yeah, I much prefer the minor cadence. Fits the theme of the fantasia much better, in my opinion.

[@monsieurgrigny]

@@andrewrichesson8627 But what do the sources say?

[@carryfreak5059]

No, Mr. Hereford chooses a Picardy third for the final chord of the Fantasia, but I would prefer he keep the ending in the key of G minor

[@brumels1570]

@@monsieurgrigny There was a study done where the author looked at the 34 of 35 surviving manuscripts of BWV 542. 7 of them contain the fantasy: 6 of them end with major and 1 in minor.

[@gmnotyet]

6:02 Fugue

[@joannawallace6564]

This is the one.

[@TheMaestro2005]

This is why I’m convinced Bach did not write the famous toccata and fugue in D minor all his other Adlib type pieces and fugues on organ are much better written

[@Frightning]

Most modern performances of Bach's famed Toccata and Fugue take a lot of liberties with tempo. You might want to listen to a more authentic-to-the-page performance of the work before doubting it's authorship. As far as I am aware, we have very good historical evidence that Bach did write BWV 565.

[@TheMaestro2005]

​@@Frightning I'm not referring to the interpretation. I've heard several of Bach's organ and keyboard works with varied interpretations on both modern and period instruments. People often over romanticizes Bach's music in performance so I'm fully aware of what an authentic performance should sound like, not just with Bach but all of Baroque and early classical music. This really doesn't change why I feel he did not write this piece. There is just as much evidence to suggest he didn't write it as there are that says he did. However, as I'm sure you know, there is no manuscript of this piece in his handwriting. The title of the work toccata, Bach never used it in his other intro and fugue works, "praeludium et fuga' is what is written on all of his other toccata and fugues, but those are names given to the pieces in later publishings. Bach's mastery in composing fugues are not followed in this piece. using octaves, having minor cadences, inconsistent voices, is it a 3 part fugue or 4 part? Bach's parts are consistent throughout, unlike let's say Handel who may use 3 and 4 parts sparingly in his fuges. There are no contrasting rhythms or contrary motion, everything follows the subject. Bach may have copied or arranged it as he's so known to do, but I don't believe it is an original piece.

[@brumels1570]

@@TheMaestro2005 there is no manuscript in Bach's hand for BWV 542 either! Not having or having is not a seal-tight proof. For BWV 565 ... Im open to it being written by a teenage Bach.

[@user-unetaro]

6:03 fugue

[@composer318]

8:19 What is this passage of D minor G minor C major F major G minor E dim A major D minor.

[@padraicfanning7055]

It’s just a circular progression.

[@keplergso8369]

Good tempi, for the Fantasia like for the Fuga, good registration too, even if the sound of the mixtures is agressive on this organ (or it is cause of the recording ?). I don't completely agree with the phrasing of the Fuga, but it is your choice. And like recalled elsewhere, the last chord of the Fantasia in G major is a strange idea...? Regards. Jacques, from France.

[@monsieurgrigny]

Liked the quavers long in that fugue subject - like using lots of bow on a double bass. Something you rarely hear - usually shorter.

[@richardmartin3631]

The G major chord at the end of the fantasia is utterly ridiculous - a sort of sentimental, home-spun flourish to 'ease' the tension. Bach does that perfectly adequately at the end of the fugue. He didn't need Mr Hurford's help in the fantasia.A terrible blight on an otherwise excellent performance and registration.

[@keplergso8369]

@@richardmartin3631 Like you, I don't like at all the major chord at the end of the Fantasia. It removes brutally the all dramatic tension of the work. The Fuga, behind, is here to resolve the tension, so the final G major chord is logical.

[@richardmartin3631]

@@keplergso8369 It's silly. It's sappy and sentimental. Some people just can't stand to live with musical tension without "resolving it" somehow. Like at the beginning of Beethoven's Copriolan overture, conductors just cannot stand to wait the length of the whole three silent beats before bringing the orchestra in. It's too confronting for them. They need their daily fix of Mozart (Most Fart), the emptiest, shallowest famous composer who ever lived. (Listen to Glenn Gould on the subject).

[@michelabboud2495]

Lovely playing BUT A BIT FAST every note of Bach is precious,let the pleasure LAST 😘💋💕💜

[@angreagach]

Though the performer ends the Fantasia on the major chord, this score ends it on the minor chord. I've heard it played both ways. Do the manuscripts differ on this?

[@louise_rose]

Yes, noticed this too. I've heard from creditable organists that the final chord here can be played (or voiced) both in major and in minor; I'm not versed enough in harmonic theory to explain it any further. Many organists do play the chord in G minor (for instance Helmut Walcha, Marie-Claire Alain) and I personally think that's more satisfying, it underlines the feel of the fantasia as a journey from pain and grief to reaffirmed hope and faith. The work was written around 1720, at the end of the Great Northern War (which also touched Germany and indeed Bach's own family - one of his brothers joined the failed attempt of Charles XII of Sweden to invade Russia). It comes after many years of war and outbreaks of plague, and this can be heard as part of the background of the music.

[@angreagach]

@@louise_rose I have since learned that my conjecture was correct. Actually, no autographs survive and no manuscript of the fantasia from Bach's lifetime survives. See the Wikipedia article on the work for further information.

[@mydogskips2]

I've always wanted to play this work, but I'm not nearly good enough, but maybe it's just me, and I know it's a rather different type of work, not a fantasia, but I think I prefer the "little fugue" in Gm a bit more than this. To me, while the fugal theme here is catchy enough, I don't particularly care for the development and think it's a bit redundant in a few places, it's also a bit long-winded as well. I think the "little fugue" is more concise and coherent, the modulations into the major keys work better there as well, shifting the moods and colors perfectly between light and dark, dour, optimistic, and triumphant. And being much shorter, it isn't overblown in length.

[@gmnotyet]

This is what IQ = 300 sounds like. It's like music written by God.

[@Sturmunddrang70]

1:52 F instead of D??

[@JoEbY-X]

Good ear. But compare it to 5:10. I wonder if the first instance is an error in the score presented here.

[@ezeth8755]

et pas un français pour apprécier ça jusque là ?

[@malcolmx1932]

bach is jesus

[@markne4854]

I'm sure you mean this comment kindly but it might be better to say something like .... a musical evangelist. Is that your meaning, or that in someway Bach can bring us so disposed closer to God?

[@michelabboud2495]

ABSOLUTE PLEASURE BUT WAY TOO FAST YOU ARE SHORTENING OUR SACRED PLEASURE LET THE PLEASURE LAST 🤡

[@VIUENTORUS]

1:08

[@Michevangelo03]

6:02 fugue

[@composer318]

8:14