How do you approach this work of unmatched complexity – the “unplayable”, the “eye music” (A. Schweitzer), written in score, with no instruments assigned; something which is more like a science?.......
As the art of the fugue was not appreciated, and it must be immediately acknowledged that the arrangement of this “Opus ultimum” of Bach’s musical history must be immediately acknowledged, a recomposition became due in turn and the premiere of my organ version took place in 2013 in Ahlbeck. True to the principle “Symmetry is the order of the stupid” (J. Cocteau), I arranged the canons symmetrically: in the centre with parts I and III, and at the start and the end with part II. Symmetry is probably the baroque principal par excellence and more...
By the way, the use of the Gräfenrodaer register (“Glockenspiel”) is a reference to Bach’s organ performances in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen – it was in these performances that he had introduced it as a novelty in the dispositions of the two organs. It was also in Arnstadt that Bach’s first composition was written: it was a fugue. And this is what tied the knot.
