Fantasia in G major, BWV 572

History#

An early version of BWV 572 was copied by Johann Gottfried Walther. The title page of Walther’s manuscript reads Pièce d’Orgue di Giov: Sebast: Bach. According to George B. Stauffer, Bach composed this early version between 1708 and . The earliest extant copies of Bach’s revised version date from the 1720s, and these manuscripts also carry the title Pièce d’Orgue. Philipp Spitta, naming the work Fantasia in the 1873 first volume of his biography of Bach, considered it more Buxtehude-like than any other composition by Bach. The Bach Gesellschaft published the piece as (converting its spelling from Italian to German) in 1891. A century later, the New Bach Edition returned to the name found in the early manuscripts, i.e. Pièce d’Orgue. Breitkopf’s 21st-century new Urtext edition also uses this name for BWV 572.

Structure#

The piece starts in compound quadruple meter (). This movement is very dynamic and cheerful, and features complete absence of the pedal. The broken chords shared between left and right hand do not seem to have a parallel in any work by another composer, though Williams notes a similarity in the “idea of running semiquavers for hands followed by a sustained durezza passage with pedals” with a prelude by Christian Friedrich Witt. The youthful vigor and digital dexterity of the opening movement leads to a broken tonic pedal point, which then transitions to the contrapuntal central section which features five voices. In contrast to the first movement, it employs the entire range of the instrument. The dense texture of the movement makes it more idiomatic for the instrument and more typical for Bach. The movement uses long held chords with many suspensions to great effect, an idiom which Bach employed with relative frequency in his mature works. The contrapuntal section does not resolve to its key chord, and instead leads via an evaded cadence into a coda which shows close similarities to the final line of BWV 565, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

Reception#

A Netherlands Bach Society article calls this piece an exercise in French style for which Bach used the Livre d’Orgue from 1700 by the French organist and composer Nicolas de Grigny as a starting point. The same article states: “The way in which Bach proceeded to put his own stamp on this style in the Pièce d’Orgue is admirable and dazzling.” <!– please add more before putting back in!

External links#

• Fantasia for organ in G major, BWV 572 (BC J83): Description by John Palmer at AllMusic
• BWV 572: Pièce d’Orgue / Fantasia in G Major – audio files of recording by James Kibbie
• Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572 – YouTube video of Robert Pecksmith’s performance at St. Jakob, Köthen, Germany
• Toccata in G, BWV 572 (Fantasia, Pièce d’orgue) – Stuart Neame’s recording at YouTube