Bach Toccata & Fugue d minor BWV 565 - Transcribed for Solo violin and played by Andrew Manze

[MattieLynnGray]

Something about this version of Toccata & Fugue in D Minor by the violin makes it sound a lot less creepier than it being played on the organ.

[MattieLynnGray]

If you listen, some parts of it almost sound like "Little" Fugue in G Minor, another famous composition by Johann Sebastian Bach.

[Aleksej79ns]

Very good! :)

[Feignabsolution]

if you make it yourself...p;ease put it in A minor. It works much better that way, trust me! I'm currently transcribing it now.

[douro20]

I'd like to hear this on a viola, played one octave lower.

[douro20]

Or perhaps a duet of violin and viola.

[asterix1998]

sorry where can I find the scores for violin solo?

[666NedFlanders]

@asterix1998 You can pretty much play it without issue from the original transcript.

[hewhofindsbeauty]

Does ANY one know where I can find sheet music to this song?

[gnulen]

@hewhofindsbeauty find the piano version - its not that hard to transcibe yourself..

[medtner2010]

Great performance. Some idiotic comments here though... Bach did not "steal". He was quite clear about his use of other material ESPECIALLY Vivialdi's works! By definition, all works of art are based on or reactions against (and thus defined by), earlier works. Yes, many scholars have questions about who wrote this piece. So what... Bach's greatest genius was to restate the previous 300 years of music in the most authoritative, compelling, intellectual and beautiful way imaginable.

[666NedFlanders]

@medtner2010 A bit hard to steal when no one knows who you are outside of germany and there is no such thing as copy right.... In any case... why is it out of character with things like Kunst Der Fugue, Bach's authorative work on the study of the Fugue, still used in Universities today? It makes most sense to say some one close who admired bach wrote it and slapped his name on it because they recognized his skill when others may have not.

[RobertoArceCorretjer]

This is truly beautiful... I've heard time and time again that this piece was originally made for violin... I can see why.

[MrPunkKingz]

the best version i ever heard for sure (Y)

[ItsMissFy]

Wonderful <3

[M3town33]

Alright, I'm gonna get some thumbs down for this but this isn't Bach, hands down lol! The Toccata was written before Bach's time and wasn't written for the organ but probably for violin like this.

[ccoraxfan]

@M3town33 Please, unless you have some evidence to post along with your statement, you have zero credibility. If not Bach, then who? if not in Bach's time, then when? And how do you know this?

[M3town33]

@ccoraxfan You want prrof that bach didn't write this? Just listen to this piece and if you know Bach unless you have zero credibility yourself you will see that he didn't write this piece. Actually, he stole a lot of music, especially from Vivaldi, which actually wasn't prohibited back then.

[666NedFlanders]

@M3town33 True, the piece isn't by him. Most credible music theorist will say this. And by credible, I mean who have a phd and done more than listen to music and read a book or two. My own mentor who helps to design the standardized college test for music theory agrees to that point, bach didn't write, and his speciality is the study of baroque/classical theory. However, bach is not much of a thief imo. The dude never even became famous until his work was re-discovered.

[M3town33]

@ccoraxfan By the way fuck you for attacking me out of all people just because you're ashamed of your own intelligence cause you couldn't take it that this wasn't original. I Even played a not original (Bach) without knewing it.

[Stravinsky91]

@ccoraxfan many people belive that it's written by another Bach. On the sheet it just says: "De monsieur Bach" (by Mr. Bach) and before Johann Sebastian Bach there was a lot of Bachs i recommend you to look at the Bach family tree. Almost every Bach was a composer/musician. The theory I've heard, during musical history classes in school, is that it's probably written for solo violin by someone of the sons of J.S Bach.

[GoldinDr]

@ccoraxfan There is a HUGE literature about this, and reasons to doubt the attribution to Bach are not trivial. Even Wikipedia has a thorough summary of the problems.

All the research about the attribution has uncovered several compositional features of BWV 565 that are rare, if not unique in the entire organ literature, and that helps us appreciate the work even more. So I say give the skeptics their due.

[ccoraxfan]

@GoldinDr If there is so much evidence, why then is there still a controversy? I've not heard such a controversy over other works formerly attributed to J. S. Bach. Just the fact that this piece is unique does not mean it wasn't written by J. S. Apparently nobody has ever given any good evidence why we should believe this was written by someone else.

[666NedFlanders]

@ccoraxfan Music theorist believe it to not be a work of Bach. "Different" is an understatement. When you study a composer's entire collection of work and see a pattern in everything but one work, you are lead to Occam's Razor. What is the most likely answer? It was common for students to attribute their works to their instructors and Bach was a known composer in Germany and student of Buextehude. If you sat down and studied music theory, I believe it would make sense to you, but time consuming.

[666NedFlanders]

@ccoraxfan There is no real controversy among theorists. It is largely accepted the work was not written by Bach. The only valid alternative explenation is Bach wrote it to test out organs, a proffesion is was known for. It still begs the question though, why not play something more suitable for that like the well tempered klavier which goes through all the keys? Also, why does it work so well for violin? It was probably writen for violin and adapted to organ by Bach's student in dedication.

[666NedFlanders]

@ccoraxfan Theorists believe it was not written by bach because it does not match with the theory bach used to write his music. The theory that a composer uses to write their music is like a thumb print, with a complex mix of rhythm, pitch, intervals, keys, and modulations. Bach was so rigid in his theory music students study his works in their freshman year all over the world because he stuck so close to the 'rules' and also wrote Kunst Der Fugue.

[ccoraxfan]

@666NedFlanders You can't really say it wasn't by him if you can't say who wrote it. What composer from that era could have composed such a piece? Anybody with that sort of skill would have composed more than one piece. So which baroque composer's musical thumbprint matches this piece? I have heard it stated that this does match Bach's skill and that it could have been an early piece. Was Bach always rigid in his rules? He had to develop them at some point.

[dolofonos]

@ccoraxfan Someone proposes a thing and suddenly it has credibility. You ask why this isn't by Bach and their answer is 'because it doesn't sound like it'. Pathetic. Pieces have been misattributed to composers for the very opposite reason, because they sound like their compositions. Let us use this logic then to say that all pieces written by Bach were in fact not because they sound too much like his own work!

[dolofonos]

@ccoraxfan These people are not scientists; if they were, they'd have derived a percentage of confidence in whether the piece was certainly written by Bach instead of making these absolute statements. It is no more than a vain attempt to rewrite history on a whim to gain notice.

I am reminded of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue; shall we decide he did not write it because he'd written nothing like it before?

Bach may well have not have wrote this; but I await the original manuscript.

[ccoraxfan]

@dolofonos Thank you for your insight. I also will not say with certainty that Bach did or did not write all the pieces attributed to him, because I have no way of making that determination. And I steadfastly refuse to be persuaded by the blind assertions of anonymous internet users who merely repeat what they've heard.

[666NedFlanders]

@ccoraxfan Kunst Der Fugue, is the art of fugue, the style of this piece of music and is still used widely in study today inorder to understand how fugues work. It is one of bach's master pieces and fits neatly in with his other pieces of music in terms of music theory, its unquestionably his work. This fugue however, sticks out like a sore thumb in the mix of those fugues and just makes no sense at all to be bachs work.It is like comparing say, kiss and ozzy, different at the fundemental level.

[birdman1585]

@gnrcr vanessa mea's version is a joke. Historians believe the piece was originally composed for violin but then was transposed and made for organ instead.

[connorbuster]

Ban--- KAIII¡¡¡¡



[jblev2]

Are you sure this isn't in A minor?

[hobbified]

@jblev2 after transposition it is... but the traditional name of the piece is "in D minor" and all that.

[GeorgeM1949]

Many years ago on St Paul Sunday Morning (PBS Radio) I heard Jaap Schroeder discuss this and then play. I believe he said it needed to be transposed to a minor in order to fit the violin. Can anyone tell if this has been transposed?

[ccoraxfan]

@GeorgeM1949 It has been transposed. Actually, this performance sounds to be in A flat minor.

[Sword1479]

Some scholars believe this piece was meant for a stringed instrument.

[rathwulf]

Anyone has the sheet music of this? Please let me know it sounds amazing and I so want to give it a try. Thanks!

[HenrykTiwaz]

Toccata i fuga d-mol nie są dzielami Bacha- on sam nigdy też nie twierdził, że je skomponował. Anonimowy geniusz, czy geniusze, skomponował je na skrzypce. Teraz się do tego wzorca, wbrew bachowskiej transkrypcji na organy, wraca. Manze gra zdyscyplinowanie, utwór jest porywający. Może przydaloby się więcej życia?

Co do Vanessy Mae - spuśćmy zasłonę miłosierdzia nad nędzą współczesnego showbusinessu.

[mmenchu]

Andrew Manze is a fine baroque violinist. First time I heard him was in the recording he did with Rachel Podger of the concerto for 2 violins. Had never heard this on violin. I still prefer it in organ but a fine job regardless.

[MultiDarkness3]

Hamma, wow this is really good!!!

[lispectorando]

I'm guessing it would sound better on the viola.

[nurtas2]

Just bought on iTunes.

[nurtas2]

Just bought on iTunes.

[gnrcr]

This is awesome, it makes Vanessa Mae's version sounds like a joke.

[sdasix]

@gnrcr Mae's version sounds like a joke anyway

[TheSakeOfGod]

@gnrcr Vanessa Mae's version IS a joke unfortunately. Vengerov's version is excellent as well.

[shatros]

@gnrcr I believe that Bach originally intended this piece for the violin. It is best known as an organ solo or ful orchestra piece. I think Vanessa Mae was attempting to fuse this with pop music but ended up butchering the piece in my humble and uneducated opinion. I have been hoping to find a nice violin solo of this and was particularly hoping Nigel Kennedy would record this but I have not found such a recording. However, as beautiful as this sounds I think I shall end my search now.

[gnrcr]

B-E-A-UTIFUL.

[thecritiqu]

*ban-kai *

[TheLastAbacus]

@thecritiqu Thank GODDDD!! Why does no one else hear that???

[Liantotjahjoputro]

Very genious

[AEFic]

I actually have to agree that this was the intended instrument. It seems far more characteristic of his solo instrumental works, from the perspective of a cellist, than his fugues, from the perspective of a composer.

[KunningKaqmere]

Unless I'm mistaken, this is the version arranged by Peter Williams, of what the original violin piece may have been. It's very beautiful, and I believe the violin has been tuned to A 415, as it may have been during the Baroque period.

[givebeesachance]

@KunningKaqmere

Manze and Williams wrote two different reconstructions. 

[Mecinimi]

@KunningKaqmere Manze actually arranged this edition. Williams followed the "original" (as it may or may note be) part rather closely to make the point that it was likely intended to be a violin piece.

[Besnorki]

Wonderful execution, awful transcription

[ericoschmitt]

that must be similar to the original version..

as far as i know, and thats what i believe in, this song was composed by someone else for solo violin, and then, many years later transcribed for organ.

bach, then, introduced the other voices to this music..

[TheJackHarkness]

@ericoschmitt I believe so too..

[dodetube7]

@ericoschmitt

An unknown spanish author in the XV. century

[ericoschmitt]

@dodetube7 both are genious

[fardisghomeshi]

nice

[plerimest]

great

[saintclaire0101]

ausgezeichnet, ist der Kerl ein Genie. Ich begrüße seine schöne Melodie

[linkfan69]

my love 2:08 to 2:54

[gescinj]

HOOO NICE

[SyncThird]

holy .......

[dora4e]

love it

[ryanmiranda4160157]

Cool.

[tjames44444]

2:07 i loe that part

[johnn1111111]

very nice