In the Toccata in F major, BuxWV157 Buxtehude comes close to the two-movement plan one associates with J S Bach. The first thirty-eight bars comprise the toccata, a magnificent affair of scale passages, repeated chords, and harmony of immense grandeur. At bar 39 there begins a four-voice fugue whose subject makes a feature of repetition (compare BuxWV139). There is a second exposition, in which the voices enter in a different order, and a third, in which there appears a new counter-subject made up of brilliant semiquavers. The coda is dominated by the first counter-subject.
from notes by Relf Clark © 2008
