WINGATE’S transcription of
J. S. BACH’S TOCCATA & FUGUE IN D MINOR, BWV 565,
for Unaccompanied Violoncello (in C minor)

Transcription Date:
2013

Duration:
9'30"

Notes:
This wildly popular organ work (somewhat unresolvedly attributed to J. S. Bach), known as the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, here makes its full transcriptional debut as a virtuosic piece for solo cello. Transposed to the key of C minor to take full advantage of the cello’s low C string, this iconic organ music translates very well to an unaccompanied cello, thanks perhaps in part to the possible existence of a solo violin version ancestor of the piece. Such speculations and controversies aside, the ascension of the work from total obscurity in the early 19th century to one of Bach’s signature pieces (and a warhorse of the macabre) today was helped in no small part by many diverse arrangements of the piece, from Stokowski’s orchestral excesses to scholarly reconstructed solo violin versions. The transcriptional ambition here causes the cello to forgo any early music austerities and instead to summon all its virtuosic powers, perhaps more characteristic of its 19th century persona and that Romantic-era milieu in which Mendelssohn first re-popularized Bach’s oeuvre. Wingate’s intimacy with the cello has led to a transcription of fiendish difficulty for the cellist, who nevertheless labors away for the sheer thrill of making a gigantic and famous work like this into a personal cellistic statement.