Bach: Four Toccatas and Fugues; Schübler Chorales
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C
major, BWV 564
Toccata and Fugue in D minor,
BWV 565
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538
("Dorian")
Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV
540
Six Schübler Chorale Preludes, BWV
645–650
John Butt (organ)
Organ of Trinity College, Cambridge
Harmonia Mundi
We don't hear enough playfulness in Bach performances. Good cheer, joy, even exuberance, yes — but there seems to be an unconscious general assumption that The Composer of the Millennium was so towering a genius, so much the Learned Musician, that having a little light-hearted fun with his music would be frivolous (the Coffee and Peasant Cantatas notwithstanding).
Happily, John Butt has no such hang-ups. There are many delightful things about Butt's performance of the very familiar works on this disc: clear articulation and varied phrasing (not necessarily an easy matter on the organ); a light touch and fleet tempos that keep any hint of ponderousness at bay; a medium-sized German Baroque-style instrument which permits that light touch yet provides the music with some muscle. The most glorious aspect of all, however, is the impish flair the good professor brings to the keyboard. The Toccatas (in contrast to the Fugues to which they're attached) are relatively free-form pieces; one can almost imagine the composer sitting at his organ and improvising them. Dr. Butt, a former professor at Berkeley who recently took a faculty post at Trinity College, Cambridge, plays the Toccatas with (of all things to bring to Bach) wonderful comic timing. For example, in the third phrases of both the C major Toccata (that two-octave downward leap which concludes the phrase) and the D minor Toccata (that little trill at the beginning of the figure — which is, after all, being played for the third time), Butt actually made me laugh out loud.
It's not so easy to be witty in the Fugues or the chorale
preludes, but this performance always comes across as stylish and good-natured,
with no hint of dour severity. "Fun" isn't an adjective I'd have expected to use
about a Bach organ recording, but it's certainly apt in this case. How
refreshing.
