| Summary: | Toccata e Carafe is an eight minute work scored for full orchestra. The title represents the two
main parts of the work. The opening toccata section is named after the keyboard works of the
Renaissance and Baroque, which are characterized by fast moving, virtuosic, imitative, and varied
material. The transitional middle section is an expressive adagio focusing on lush string writing with the
melody in the violins. The final section begins with a chorale first presented in the brass, accompanied
by fast moving scalar lines in the strings and woodwinds. The piece concludes with a brief
recapitulation of the toccata and adagio sections before a "Grand Pause", and a final presentation of
chorale in C within the coda.
The form of the work is influenced by the third movement of Witold Lutoslawski's Concerto for
Orchestra entitled "Passacaglia, Toccata e Corale." Lutoslawski skillfully combines three different
musical textures into one cohesive movement through the use of melodic and structural motivic
connections. This piece attempts to achieve the same cohesive whole through similar techniques. The
work develops from the material presented in the first 28 measures. The opening melody contains half
step motions used throughout the work, both melodically and structurally. The top note in the opening
harmony and melody in the violins, flutes, and piccolo starts on C:!$, which is an important melodic pitch
in the toccata. The C# also serves a structural purpose later in the work as the tonal center for the
complete presentation of the chorale, starting in measure 154. The C# is used as a structural
chromatic upper neighbor to C, which is the ultimate arrival pitch and harmony in the coda, starting in
measure 212. The melodic contour in the adagio section, in turn, is developed from the opening
melody's alternating, arpeggiated, and scalar motions, but the harmony used in the adagio anticipates
the chorale's harmonic sound world. In this way each section contributes musically to every following
section, creating a cohesiveness that binds the different musical textures present in the work. === Physical copy includes duplicate pages 20-31
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