Toccata argentina

Toccata argentina (2020) combines elements of Viennese serialism, Baroque music and Argentine dances in a virtuosic and energetic work for solo organ. In 2018, while I was living in Milan, Argentine organist Luis Caparra asked me to compose a piece for this instrument that could capture the “flavour” of his country. He reminded me that Ginastera was among the few composers who created works for organ related to Argentine themes and mentioned to me the idea of premiering my new piece at the Kirchner Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires, which holds the organ Klais Opus 1912, built by the German firm Johannes Klais Orgelbau. Luis Caparra also mentioned his plans of subsequently performing this work on the organ held at the chapel of the La Salle College in Buenos Aires, built by the French firm Cavaillé-Coll.

The mentioned proposal awoke in me many memories: the organs of the city where I was born: Stockholm, the great organ of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris that I frequently listened to as a child, the toccatas for organ by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli that I learned as a teenager while studying at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, my first trip to Argentina and the musical moments I shared with Juan Bautista Combes (H. Pablo Juan) while playing the pipe organ and the pump organ at the chapel of the La Salle College in Buenos Aires, the conversations I had with Luis Caparra while I was teaching at the conservatory of this city, the organs of St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Augustinian Church in Vienna that I regularly listened to while studying at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the organs of Wawel Cathedral and St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków that I admired while studying in this city with Krzysztof Penderecki, etc. Given these personal circumstances, I gladly accepted the commission and started composing Toccata argentina.

My work Toccata argentina (“Argentine toccata” in Italian) is rooted in the tradition of toccatas by composers such as Bach, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Froberger, the Gabrielis, Hassler, Luzzaschi, Merulo, Pachelbel, Rossi, Scarlatti and Sweelinck. When composing this piece while sitting at my piano, I started the compositional process by combining the characteristic rhythmic patterns and structures of Renaissance and Baroque toccatas with those of traditional dances of Argentina related to the use of syncopation and vertical hemiola, which I witnessed while working in this country, such as chacarera, escondido, gato, huella, malambo and triunfo. At the same time, I added a pitch organization based on Viennese serialism to my work, thus uniting two of the several traditions in which I was educated by attending the mentioned institutions during my adolescence and first years of my youth: the Venetian tradition of musical studies and the tradition of the Second Viennese School.

Commissioned by and dedicated to Luis Caparra, and in memory of Juan Bautista Combes (H. Pablo Juan), Toccata argentina will be premiered by this performer in Buenos Aires (Argentina) on 22 October 2022 at the National Auditory of the Kirchner Cultural Centre (Auditorio Nacional del Centro Cultural Kirchner), during the event called Night of Museums (La Noche de los Museos).

Dr. (PhD) Jan Emanuel Abras (born 1 February 1975 in Stockholm, Sweden)

www.janemanuelabras.com