Bach: The Art of Fugue

Bach’s fascination with the possibilities of counterpoint is the very essence of Die Kunst der Fuge, which the great French organist Marie-Claire Alain (1926-2013) performed at Alsace’s Masevaux Organ Festival in 1992. Famously and enigmatically, Bach never completed the work, and Alain respects this by breaking off the final fugue. ”Let us not forget that Bach was human too,” she wrote. “The brilliant architect and accomplished philosopher speaks and acts as a man both vulnerable and humble in the face of destiny that pursues its inexorable course.”