Widor’s “Toccata” is a popular choice of music for weddings, in the UK at least.
However, there are two small problems if it is chosen.
1) it is a little too long for the average wedding procession, and the organist is left wondering how to come to a dignified finale.
2) For the not so expert player there are rather too many notes in the upper register, mostly for the right hand but switching at intervals to the left hand.
I am surprised that no enterprising publisher has produced a simplified version for amateur organists of lesser competence!
Tony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKejfYzB3ak
Not in the U.S. Seems too "secular" to be a popular choice.I can't imagine it as anything but a recessional or postlude. As such, a different finale wouldn't be needed unless the organist wasn't being paid overtime :)
Rick,
Quote
"the work is indeed rather Bach-like in its vast architecture that results from extended, quasi-improvisatory chromatic reworking of a single motif. The Toccata is motoric and resplendent; often performed by church organists, it has gained new fans in recent years from its frequent use, due precisely to those qualities, as a wedding-music recessional. It appears on several albums of "Classical Music for Brides" and the like2.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/toccata-from-organ-symphony-no-5#ixzz1ZEd93zJv
Tony
It was played as a postlude in our wedding in 2004 and is played as a postlude in our church about once a quarter on our Casavant. To listen to it, I just don't leave the choir loft.
It was played at my last wedding, more than 29 years ago in Oakland, CA. It was also played at Rockefellar Chapel in Chicago for my brother, Jeremy's, first wedding.
I played the 72 bell carillon for that one.