"Toccata" seems like a highfalutin musical word, but I had never seen an actual definition of it. So I looked it up in my Oxford Musical Dictionary, and it turns out it isn't highfalutin at all. It is basically a very early term for what became a "Prelude." Which could be pretty much anything, but usually a short piece that isn't specifically a dance. Bach wrote a bunch of toccatas, most famously toccatas and fugues for the organ. But he also wrote a series of keyboard toccatas that are not as well known as they should be.



On CD.

Like all the Bach that Glenn Gould plays his recordings of the toccatas are both interesting and wonderful.

New page and we are at Beethoven's 6th, aka The Pastoral. Inspired by Beethoven's walks in the woods outside Vienna, I went with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and Vienna Philharmonic from the late 60s.



On CD.

This is an outstanding collection of prime Vienna Phil: after they recovered from the war but before they lost the "Vienna Sound" and became just another virtuoso orchestra.

One of my desert island discs:



On CD.

There are a lot of (interesting) ways to interpret what a lot of people think is the cornerstone of Western Art Music. I'd venture The Well Tempered Clavier is perhaps more open to interpretation than any other piece I know. Fredrich Gulda does two things, first is that while he plays on a modern concert grand piano, he plays the different preludes and fugues in the style of one of the 3 keyboard instruments Bach knew: the harpsichord, clavier and pipe organ.

And he doubles down on the mathematical elegance of the composition. I'd call this interpretation "Bach, all Bach and nothing but Bach." The only "emotion" in this performance in the emotion Bach wrote into the perfection of the notes, and it is magnificent.

Orlande de Lassus aka Roland de Lassus was one of the absolute high water marks of Renaissance polyphonic choral writing. And this recording of his Cantiones Sacrae by Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent is one of the absolute high water marks Renaissance polyphonic singing. The sound and the singing is just magical.



16/44 FLAC download

Richard Strauss' ethereal Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings.



16/44 FLAC download

Herbert Blomstedt conducts Strauss' old orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle in a luxurious reading.

I am finishing up my brief revisit to the Baroque period with J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos" performed by The English Concert/Trevor Pinnock:



While I have listened to baroque music before, this may be the most concentrated focus I've given to different composers from this era, where (at least for me) the "family resemblance" of baroque music by different composers seems clearer to me.  It has also been interesting to listen to this music (where the structure and tonal "center" of the music seem well-defined), after listening to some of Shoenberg's atonal music using the 12-tone composition techniques.  

I think I may give another listen to Schoenberg now, having "reset" my ears to strongly tonal music, to see if it helps me to begin to understand what the 12-tone system is about (along with looking at some YouTube videos that discuss 12-tone music and its history).  

When I comes to the Second Viennese School I prefer the students to the teacher. I prefer the music of Alban Berg and Anton Webern to Schoenberg. And the LaSalle Quartet box is a great way to get all of their quartets, plus those of Alexander Zemlinsky.



16/44 FLAC download

The LaSalle Quartet takes a bit of the edge off the music compared to the Juilliard.