Opus 708

Toccata: Homage to Buxtehude (2007)

for Organ

Duration: 5 min.

Dedication: for Joan DeVee Dixon

Commission: Commissioned by Joan DeVee Dixon

Publisher: Wayne Leupold Editions, Inc. in "Carson Cooman: Organ Music, Vol. 6"

Performance materials available from the publisher.

Toccata: Homage to Buxtehude (2007) was commissioned by Joan DeVee Dixon for her summer 2007 recital tour of the Czech Republic, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the death of the German Baroque organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637–1707). This work draws on the structure and textures of Buxtehude’s myriad organ toccatas.  In particular, it is a contemporary “take” on the rather schizophrenic, “jump-cut” form found in many North German keyboard compositions.  While some of the harmonic ideas allude to Buxtehude’s own music and time (although there are no quotations), they are often “disrupted” by more contemporary harmonies and modulations.