Art of Fugue

The complete work on organ

My friend quipped, “Whenever I put this on, it makes whatever I'm doing instantly more meaningful.” You could play this music while you're washing dishes, and you would be washing dishes with the whole universe. The music trains you to hear everything as a fugue – as strands of sound weaving around each other. It is the way everything works – the way roots grow under the soil, the way veins thread through a leaf or through a human body, the way planets and constellations revolve in the night sky.

This is the profundity of Bach's music – the same principle is at work on the smallest and largest scale. The voices speaking simultaneously depend on each other. They illuminate and support each other and derive their meaning from each other. Though written mostly in a religious context, the fugue has nothing inherently religious about it. This is especially clear in Bach's last, unfinished work, The Art of Fugue: written without words, even without instruments! The score gives only four "voices" and no indication of what is to give voice to them. It has been played on everything from harpsichord to organ to saxophone quartet to electronic instruments.

The timbre of the instruments makes a big difference. My favorite is the versions for string quartet. Though anachronistic, the sound of four strings, sensuous yet bare, take the music to a purely human level. It is the voice of the body - physical, social or cosmic, whereas the organ version is a voice speaking from above, dominating the body. The organ seems to embody religious authority.



Bach: Two pieces from The Art of Fugue, played by Keller Quartet