|
Prelude and Toccata |
The traditional terms in the title are not used loosely. When Couperin described his art as 'touching the keyboard' he did just that. To touch (toccare) the keyboard rather than play is the notion behind every good toccata. Nothing is sustained but simply touched. Taking this as a starting point the Prelude introduces fragmentary material which is integrated and developed in the Toccata. An ambivilant relationship of A with its modal mediant C provides the harmonic and intervallic direction. The semitone anacrusis which features strongly in the Toccata is married with the minor third in the Prelude adding up to a direct quotation from Berg's 'Three Orchestral Pieces'. The stuttering statements of the Prelude find fluency only at the close, when simulating the material of the Toccata, which is the main movement. It too stutters out the structural intervals initially, only gradually achieving fluent textures with an undiscernible gathering of the pace by means of metric modulation. Inevitably, this becomes a technical tour de force for the pianist, who is asked to sustain the closing pages 'appassionata'.
© Edwin Roxburgh