It is the (probably) familiar Toccata and Fugue in d minor, only performed on brass instruments instead of a pipe organ. Don’t you think they capture the intention of the composer by breaking the piece up into these parts? Did you realize this arrangement when you only heard it performed on the organ?
More than that, don’t they, despite their failures, succeed in communicating the piece, and in many instances improving on the conversation with the inclusion of the trumpets and the brass in general? Isn’t (despite a few errors) the lead trumpet terrific? The bass… and don’t you love the French Horn and the Trombone?
Doesn’t the composition of this piece mean something? (I think something like a frank accounting of the devils and bugbears of our physical existence, and their justification/meaning, ymmv) How is that achieved? How is that communicated? Fascinating! Bravo, sir!
I have many recordings of this piece, as well as others by the Canadian Brass . . . but I won’t be adding this one. Perhaps if I were hearing just the audio, without seeing how hard they’re working, I wouldn’t be feeling so tense and anxious.
Of course it means something; all art means something. But I wouldn’t be so egotistical as to pretend to know Bach’s intentions. But whatever they were, this isn’t it.
If this performance “proves the existence of God,” then I remain an atheist.
I have this on one of their LPs. Beautiful! It allows my untrained ear to “dissect” the music, to hear the separate melodic lines distinctly. On the organ, the notes all sort of blend into each other, but here, it’s sort of as if (in audio) the melodic lines are highlighted with different colors.
This (to me) is particularly notable when the fugue begins. I can clearly hear the layering of the fugue’s lines.
Wonderful group!
(Spoofed by P.D.Q. Bach as the “Canaanian Brass.”)
I enjoyed it–thanks for sharing. My favorite YouTube version of Toccata and Fugue in D minor is this one (the notes scroll across the screen as they are played–mesmerizing).
