Although the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, thought* to be by Johann Sebastian Bach, is such a famous work that few people out there will not have heard it, I couldn’t resist sharing this great version which a friend send me recently. It was played by Hungardian-born organist Xaver Varnus in 2013 in the beautiful but cavernous Berliner Dom. It’s particular noticeable how Varnus adjusts his performance to account for the reverberation time. Playing too quickly when there is a long echo can lead to confusion but in this case the playing is crisp enough to hear the piece unfolding while slow enough to let the acoustic add a special ingredient of its own. This performance lasts a good couple of minutes longer than any other version I have on CD. One of the YouTube commenters on this video puts it very well indeed: “It’s nice to see an organist who understands they are not only playing the organ, but the entire building. His timing as the sound decays across the auditorium is impeccable.” Indeed. A mere recording can’t capture the sensation of hearing the music through the soles of your feet as well through your ears, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. It’s also good to see the organist close up so you can see how demanding it is to play a work like this.
*the attribution to Johan Sebastian Bach has been questioned. There is no surviving manuscript in Bach’s hand and the evidence that it was actually written by him is circumstantial.
In the Dark 