Francesco Tristano - Bach: The 7 Toccatas (2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The third volume that Francesco Tristano dedicates to his beloved Johann Sebastian Bach, following the six Partitas and the six English Suites, comprises all seven Toccatas, BWV 910-916, early works likely dating from the period 1707-1715. Here, the Luxembourger celebrates above all the exuberant, captivating joy of the young Bach.

With their contrasting, almost incandescent colors, Breno Rotatori's photographs that adorn this third volume of Francesco Tristano's dedication to his beloved Johann Sebastian Bach aptly reflect the exuberant joy that bursts forth from the pianist's fingers in the Toccatas (BWV 910-916). These seven scores, whose precise origin and date remain uncertain [no original manuscript has survived], probably date back to 1707. A young man then just over twenty years old, deeply influenced by North German music, Bach had found his first stable position in Mühlhausen as an organist. His growing affinity for keyboard instruments, and his encounter two years earlier with Buxtehude, who definitively gave him the keys to the North German style (more or less the stylus fantasticus), motivated the young composer to write more ambitious, virtuosic works. These pieces blend the rigor of Italian and German masters such as Frescobaldi, Reincken, and Froberger with an extraordinary ingenuity in the art of counterpoint, which would become the cornerstone of his creative thought.

The Toccatas remain a legendary challenge for pianists. According to Francesco Tristano, “the important thing here is the use of the term toccata, from the verb toccare, which means to touch, and by extension, to play. To play for fun, to be entertained.” Faced with the acrobatic ascents and descents across two staves, or the swirling and inexhaustible fugues, invented here by the future Cantor, Tristano displays an unyielding tenacity on the instrumental level, a sign of a truly insatiable appetite for the unusual, within the expected, throughout these seven pieces. The dazzling ardor and fierce determination demanded by the seven Toccatas, the Luxembourger undoubtedly found them during the five days in June 2025 when he made this recording, within the Yamaha Sound Crossing building in the heart of Tokyo’s Shibuya district. As already proclaimed by the cycles of great Suites previously published1, filled with vivid accents, swept by a sharp science of characters, an intrinsically phantasticus part runs through the playing of Francesco Tristano – here even more immediate, frank, baroque, without limits! 1 after the 6 Partitas and the 6 English Suites, the 6 French Suites will be published in 2026.

Tracklist:
01 Toccata in F-Sharp Minor, BWV 910_ I. no tempo
02 Toccata in F-Sharp Minor, BWV 910_ II. Fuga - Presto e staccato - no tempo - Fuga
03 Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911_ I. no tempo - Adagio - Fuga. Allegro - Adagio
04 Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911_ II. Fuga. Allegro - Adagio - Presto
05 Toccata in D Major, BWV 912_ I. no tempo - Allegro - Adagio
06 Toccata in D Major, BWV 912_ II. no tempo - Presto
07 Toccata in D Major, BWV 912_ III. Fuga
08 Toccata in D Minor, BWV 913_ I. no tempo - Presto - Thema. Fuga
09 Toccata in D Minor, BWV 913_ II. Adagio - Presto
10 Toccata in D Minor, BWV 913_ III. Allegro
11 Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914_ I. no tempo - Un poco Allegro - Adagio
12 Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914_ II. Fuga a 3. Allegro
13 Toccata in G Minor, BWV 915_ I. no tempo - Adagio - Allegro - Adagio
14 Toccata in G Minor, BWV 915_ II. Fuga
15 Toccata in G Major, BWV 916_ I. no tempo
16 Toccata in G Major, BWV 916_ II. Adagio - Allegro e presto


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