Jonathan Shaw

     More influence from Bach! No surprise there – the Baroque style was everything to me when I first started composing. And this piece in particular was my first attempt at a toccata and fugue for organ. I wrote the Fugue first and the Toccata came later (I remember struggling with the toccata). I also remember writing parts of the fugue in the college library, and at one point a friend listened to it and complimented it (out of kindness, surely!)

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     You can hear a big influence from the previous "Melodies" in the Fugue as it never really settles in one key - it is constantly modulating awkwardly into bizarre and distant keys with very abrupt progressions that really don't work. I remember also writing up a page or two of manuscript with 'Organ Ideas' that I could just pluck and use in any of my organ pieces without effort. One of these ideas might have appeared here, again aiding the rather haphazard direction of this piece.

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     Note the pedal in the fugue – this was a direct link of the many pedals that Bach would often use in his fugues, and I wanted to make sure I wrote a subject that would work with a pedal. You can decide for yourself how successful that was, although I think we all know the answer.

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     The chronology is quite curious in that the original Sibelius files were seemingly left unmodified and give a finishing date for the Fugue as 7th November 2012, and the Toccata as 20th November 2012. I suspect these hold some accuracy as the Fugue did come first, though by comparing these dates to the later piece "C.19", I conclude that these dates are incorrect, and it is more likely that C.15 was written in September or October 2012.