Toccata "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott"

Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) was a German organist and composer who resided in America for most of his career.

Middelschulte initially studied organ with August Knabe. He later attended the Royal Academic Institute for Church Music in Berlin, where he studied organ and theory with August Haupt. After briefly holding a position at the Royal Institute and acquiring a post at St. Luke Church in Berlin, he moved to Chicago in 1891. In 1893, he gave three performances entirely from memory at the Columbian Exposition. From 1896 - 1918 he was organist for what would later become the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During the 1920s, he regularly returned to his native Germany to give performances.

He is regarded as one of the most significant organists of his time, and was critically acclaimed for his performances of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1939, after nearly fifty years in America, Middelschulte returned to Germany, where he died only four years later. His students included Virgil Fox and Cecilia Clare Bocard. [Extract from Wikipedia]

His Toccata proves that minimal music was not invented by Steve Reich and Terry Riley.

The first part treats the c.f. in the bass, accompanied by a one-bar motive in a canon between right and left hand. It is followed by a wonderful soft part, where the pedals play the c.f. in symmetric inversion (the exact size of the intervals is kept, so that the diatonic scale is left), accompanied by a two-bar repetitive motive in the right hand and a nice melody in the left. It is followed by a short "scherzo" and a brief reminescence to the soft part. Then the toccata is taken up again, now with a canon of the c.f. in the pedals, borrowed from Bach's cantata.

The score is available on imslp.org.