The Toccata, Chorale, and Fugue of Francis Jackson (b1917) was completed in 1955 and is ‘affectionately dedicated to Dr Healey Willan’, the English-born composer who settled in Canada. Mentored by Bairstow, Jackson succeeded him as Organist of York Minster in 1946 and held the post until 1982, when he retired to devote his time to composing. Francis Jackson is an internationally known and highly regarded recitalist, and the Toccata, Chorale, and Fugue is a virtuoso work that not only shows off the performer’s technical abilities but also allows him or her to explore a vast range of colour and dynamics on the organ at hand. After an introduction marked largo e pesante, the piece launches into a Toccata in B minor, the harmonies and scale patterns of which are often rather modal in nature. The Toccata is finely crafted, with a crystal-clear texture thatnever exceeds five voices until the last six bars of the movement. A brief re-capitulation of the introductory material leads into the Chorale, which uses dotted rhythm and semi-quaver figures very similar to those of the Toccata, this time in a more sumptuous and lyrical way. The Fugue is marked Giocoso, tempo della Toccata, and the dotted quaver pairs are again used, along with rising arpeggio figures very similar to those heard in the introduction. The semi-quaver toccata figuration makes a brief reappearance, as does the opening dotted figure of the introduction, at the end of the work.

from notes by Ann Elise Smoot © 2010