Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564

Bach's extended passaggio which opens BWV 564 may have been inspired by Buttstett's preludes; both the rhetorical rests followed by returns to the tonic and the single pedal notes are part of the older tradition as well.

Various scholars have noted how the construction of this first movement is reminiscent of that of a concerto, if the opening manual and pedal passages are taken as "solos" and the closing contrapuntal section as a "tutti".

The insertion of a middle slow movement in an organ work was unusual for Bach, although traces of this idea can be found in other works from the same period: for example, a surviving early version of Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545, contains a slow Trio, which was removed from the final version, but found its way into one of the late organ trio sonatas, BWV 529.

[8] Somewhat unusually for Bach, the fugue includes very few episodes, the longest being the coda of the piece, which is based on various style brisé figures.

Bach's pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs imitated the work in his Prelude and Fugue in C major (leaving out, however, the slow movement), while in the 20th century, Ferruccio Busoni published a transcription of BWV 564 for the piano (1900; one of many Bach transcriptions by the same author), and the work influenced Busoni's own Toccata for Piano (1920).