# Analysing JS Bach's Keyboard Toccatas



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Am I right in thinking that Bach's keyboard Toccatas were written when he was a young man? I wonder if any musicologist professor has ever tried to fully analyse them. Some of the chords and their progressions are very interesting. Also, the constant modulations that just seems to work perfectly. The beginning of the F sharp minor toccata is quite something but I don't know where to begin in trying to work them out. Or should we not bother? What is the point?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

beetzart said:


> Am I right in thinking that Bach's keyboard Toccatas were written when he was a young man? I wonder if any musicologist professor has ever tried to fully analyse them. Some of the chords and their progressions are very interesting. Also, the constant modulations that just seems to work perfectly. The beginning of the F sharp minor toccata is quite something but I don't know where to begin in trying to work them out. Or should we not bother? What is the point?


Yes, youthful works. They are some of the last examples in the musical history of the Italian/German Stylus Phantasticus (along with the Chromatic Fantasy). This is why strange and unforeseen things happen in the music. I do not think a tonal analysis increases the listening pleasure.


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