Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538

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The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538, is an organ piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Like the more well-known BWV 565, BWV 538 also bears the title Toccata and Fugue in D minor, although it is often referred to by the nickname "Dorian" - a reference to the fact that the piece is written with a key signature (zero flats) that is not normally used for the key of D minor, and would instead seem to indicate the Dorian mode.

However, the two pieces are quite different musically. The "toccata" section of BWV 538 opens with a motoric sixteenth-note motif that continues almost uninterrupted to the end of the piece, and includes unusually elaborate concertato effects. Bach even goes through the trouble of notating the manuals the organist is to play on, a very unusual practice in the day and one unique in Bach's organ output. The toccata has a rather closed, self contained feeling, rather than an open free-form feeling heard in most toccatas of Bach.

The fugue is long and complex, and involves a rather archaic-sounding subject which prominently features syncopations and an upward leap of a fourth. The strict contrapuntal development is only broken in the final four bars, when a few massive antiphonal chords bring the piece to an impressive close. The fugue of BWV 538 is very similar to the fugue of BWV 540. They both imply an alla breve time signature; they both use poor metoric subjects with whole notes and syncopated half notes, with a rhythm of constant eighth notes, rather than constant sixteenth notes seen in most of Bach's fugues; they both use chromaticism, harmonic suspensions, and uninterrupted succession of subjects and answers. The piece starts with one vioce.