Christian Jost

Symphonische Toccata

There is no other work more closely associated with the organ than Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata in D minor. During my compositional preparation, I repeatedly found myself returning to this work. I had a number of different formal models in mind, but felt myself gravitating towards the rhapsodic character of toccata form so that my new composition for organ ultimately became a toccata developing from a pedal point on the fundamental note 'd'. As is appropriate to the volume of a large modern organ, my concept focuses on symphonic tonal layers whose suggestive maelstrom originates from the inner strength of repeating elements and their register- like augmentation, culminating in the unleashing of polyrhythmic progressions. (Christian Jost)