Toccata sexta oder sechstes musicalisches Blumen-Feld

Speth's sixth toccata has not three, but four sections. It's also the only one to be in F major. Overall, I chose a more relaxed and contemplative approach to this toccata. It's not as flashy, so I avoided ornamentation.

For section one in 6/4, I used only the 8' principal. I love how mellow this principal is. For the pedal point, I used the 8' octave bass.

In section two in common time, I added the octav from the positive to the hauptwerk's 8' principal and beefed up the pedal with the 4' flute. It's an adagio section full of long, sustained chords with suspensions. It's really a mini-masterpiece in modulation and ahead of its time. The way the chords progress by descending thirds in the bass is a very Romantic idea and reminds me of Bruckner.

Part three is contrapuntal in nature, a four-voice fughetta section. The opening of the subject relates directly back to the first section's statement with its descending fourth from F to C.

And section four returns to the Adagio style, this time more declamatory and choral. There are also terraced dynamics and keyboard changes. This is the biggest section, registration wise, of the four.

A note about section three's performance: so I prepared this a couple of different ways while practicing. You hear it plain here, but I also really liked it highly ornamented. I then heard one of my prior teacher's comments in my head, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." So I prepared it without the ornaments for recording. However, one still snuck in there in the 14th measure--a little turn on the run up in the right hand. I rather like it, so I let it stay and didn't re-record again because everything else is quite good I think. Also, I purposefully changed the base note in measure 16 of this part from E-flat to B-flat. The harmonic progression and voice-leading was just weird otherwise. My "fixes" produced stepwise upward sixths, a far more characteristic result.