Toccata, Op. 11
4 min
Recording
- Toccata in D minor, Op. 11Martha Argerich4:09
Martha Argerich plays Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor, Op. 11, which opens with a single repeated D passed between the hands and closes with the D played across the whole keyboard. Between the opening and the close, chromatic lines move beneath the repeated notes.
Listening notes · joins
- Opening, repeated Ds
The hands take turns striking D, the left an octave below the right, in continuous semiquavers. The left hand then moves up and down in semitones while the right outlines a chord of D minor.
- Letter to Derzhanovsky, April 1912
On 24 April 1912 Nikolay Myaskovsky wrote to the critic Vladimir Derzhanovsky about the new Toccata. He praised its simple themes and added: “I can’t help but scream in delight.”
- Return of the repeated-note theme, augmented
After the chromatic lines have spread across the keyboard, the opening repeated-note figure returns. Prokofiev augments its rhythm and follows it with a short pause. The hands then move apart again.
- Brooklyn Museum recital, 1918
At the Brooklyn Museum on 29 October 1918, Prokofiev played before a reception for Boris Anisfeld’s paintings and theatre designs. He softened the Toccata for the guests and left out notes. The unsigned review in the next day’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle compared him to a lion roaring like a dove.
- Return of the opening D in octaves
The opening D returns in alternating octaves, now in both hands. It comes back after chromatic scales and clashing chords, and this time it covers much more of the keyboard.
- Closing bars
The music slows and stops, then the piano climbs once more in chromatic steps. An upward glissando leads to the final chord, two D octaves marked sforzando at opposite ends of the keyboard.
Joins
- Return of the repeated-note figure
The chromatic thirds lead back to the repeated-note figure. The writing thins and the rhythm broadens, and a pause comes before the next passage. In that passage both hands play triad figures and descend at different times.
- Chromatic lines converge on D
Minor triads climb in the right hand while chromatic octaves descend in the left. The descending-thirds tune returns around D, then both hands take up repeated D octaves. The single repeated notes of the opening are now octaves played by both hands.
- Slowdown, pause and chromatic ascent
The repeated octaves slow down and stop. When the notes return, they rise as a chromatic scale. Octave chords and an upward glissando follow. Prokofiev ends the piece with two accented D octaves, one at each end of the keyboard.