Bach - Toccata in D minor, BWV 913 (PDF Sheet Music / Digital Download)

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata in D minor, BWV 913, is a sprawling, multi-sectional masterpiece that showcases the composer’s youthful mastery of the "stylus phantasticus"—a free, improvisational style characteristic of the North German organ school. Likely composed during his tenure at Weimar (c. 1708–1717), the work is far more structured and contemplative than its famous organ cousin (the BWV 565). It opens with a brilliant, virtuosic flourish of scales and arpeggios that quickly gives way to a series of strictly constructed sections, including two distinct fugues. The first fugue is characterized by its steady, rhythmic drive, while the second acts as a grand, double-fugal finale that builds to a climax of intellectual and technical rigor. Throughout the piece, Bach balances raw emotional expression with a sophisticated understanding of counterpoint, making BWV 913 a quintessential bridge between his early experimental phase and his later, more refined keyboard works.

This edition is a reissue of music originally published by Edition Peters.