In the Toccatas it can be seen how Bach permits his fugal conceptions organically to grow. It is in them that we see the psychology of the fugue more purely than in the strictest formal fugal movements. Take, for example, the F sharp minor Toccata. Here the fingers preludise over the keyboard, gradually growing slower, the passages differentiate themselves into motives, which gently imitate each other, until at length they come to rest on a solid bass. This is the moment of lyric inspiration; and the soul sighs itself out in a slow movement, which weaves itself in fugal style, speedily sweeping forth in its own free, harmonious woven-work. A staccato-motive breaks in; rolling semiquavers soon crystallise around it; it grows and swells in a three-voiced fugue; loosens itself, becomes lighter, and passes off into an operatic joyousness, circling round in repetitions, which to us seem almost too wide for the narrow significance of this motive. A pause, and in the new-won freshness emerges the first chromatic adagio-motive as a lively floating fugue, soon breaking forth into four voices, and ending in a stirring finale. Take the D major Toccata. Here there is a joyous prelude of ascending scales, running off in chords and tremoli. An insertion of a fresh capriccioso motive follows, which pursues its course mingled with playful figures. A pause in adagio; mournfully moving melodies, freely accompanied by tremoli; softly passing over into a quiet three-voice fugue, which again leads to preluding passages, speaking recitatives, broken chords, till the great wild hunt of triplets surges in its fugal power. This D major piece is in content and technique Schumann all over. Similarly, one easily recognises the development of soul in the solemn C minor Toccata, which is dominated almost throughout by a charmingly-constructed fugue; or in the D minor Toccata, with its stirring and beautiful adagio-movement; the G minor with its bacchanalian finale; the rapid G major; and the never-to-be-forgotten E minor with its clearness and restraint. They are all built up on an inner meaning, and show a grandeur in their intimate nature such as only Beethoven has dared to express on the clavier, and a soulfulness never surpassed by a programme-musician in our century in his own style. But the fugue has in them become the indwelling soul, and the whole speech of music has absolutely ascended into their form. We see it come, grow, and depart.