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:art of fugue
 Gramophone Magazine Review
A lavish production, fully justified by a great performance from George Ritchie.
Ritchie writes in the accompanying booklet that this is a work that “pleases the mind and the ear in equal measure” and in the DVD sets out his interpretative goal, hoping that listeners will be “thinking about the music, not what I’m doing to it”. As good as his word, Ritchie’s CD performances are of the type that demand the closest attention from listeners … and while his playing is neat and utterly devoid of idiosyncrasy, it draws the ear so fully into Bach’s music that I have no hesitation in describing this as a reference recording.
The contents of the DVD are a worthy accessory to the two CDs … with two films and three hours’ playing time. … the first of those films is a tremendously illuminating and magnificently produced documentary on the background to the recording itself, with interviews with Christoph Wolff and Messrs Richards and Fowkes (who built the Arizona organ on which the recording was made), as well as with Ritchie himself enthusing about the work and, in one of the film’s more fascinating episodes, the completion of the final Fugue by Ritchie’s own teacher Helmut Walcha.
The second film is a section-by-section description of the work with Ritchie highlighting the problems (illustrated by the edition of the score used in the recordings) and giving his solutions to them; an indulgence which most performers would envy but which is justified here by the uniquely dedicated work of everyone involved in what is, for me, the finest recording of Bach’s Art of Fugue irrespective of media or instrument.
Gramophone Magazine, July 2010
Choir and Organ Review
The vocabulary of modern documentary TV is deeply ingrained in our lives. It’s driven by a desire to hang on to the viewer at all costs – all too often the result is sound-bite scripts, frenetic editorial cutting and a concentration on arresting, but not always relevant, visual imagery. Fugue State Films’ Art of Fugue project is the absolute antithesis: conventional broadcasters would run a mile. The 2CD + DVD package is built around the US organist and pedagogue George Ritchie’s performance of Bach’s revised version, on the Richards, Fowkes organ of Pinnacle Presbyterian, Scottsdale, Arizona (with supplementary Bach works including Helmut Walcha’s completion of the final fugue, played on Taylor and Boody, Bedient and Brombaugh organs).
The audio tracks are complimented by a three-and-a-half hour DVD, Desert Fugue. In this documentary Ritchie and the doyen of Bach scholars, Christoph Wolff, are intercut as they discuss the meaning and impact of the work on the history of western music; organ builders Ralph Richards and Bruce Fowkes provide illumination on the organ of the Bach era (and modern US organ design); and finally, Ritchie and Wolff discuss the reception history of the Art of Fugue. Long pieces-to-camera are cut together with a linking narration by director Will Fraser that allows the story to unfold with the kind of pace and depth which the work’s rich complexities, and the protagonists’ detailed knowledge and experience, fully deserve. Fraser makes copious use of stills and recorded footage from Arizona, Leipzig, Naumburg, the Netherlands, England, and the Richards, Fowkes factory, to provide a visual counterpoint to the detailed narrative. To cap this, Ritchie sits at the Scottsdale console to provide nearly two hours of engaging, spontaneous bar-by-bar analysis, with helpful cutaways to the score; there is even a booklet with written notes and organ specifications.
Magnificent in its uncompromising approach, this remarkable production should be a set text for all university, college and conservatoire courses for performers and academics alike. ‘Lay’ people and Bach aficionados (with or without their own copy of the score) are certain to gain just as much pleasure and understanding of this monumental work from this endlessly absorbing set.
Graeme Kay
Choir and Organ, July / August 2010
Organists' Review
What a feast! Many regard Bach’s Art of Fugue as one of the most staggering intellectual musical achievements, 20 fugues lasting over 1 ½ hours all derived from the same four bar theme, a masterly flowering of branches from such a small seed. Some also regard it as divine music and not merely an exercise. Such people include Professor George Ritchie (university of Nebraska) and Christoph Wolff, who discuss the history and reception of the work in a compelling 90-minute documentary. This also touches upon Bach’s organs and the reasons why the CD recording was made on the Richards, Fowkes & Co organ in Scottsdale, Arizona (hence the title Desert Fugue), a discussion which includes the organ builders themselves. The second DVD offering is a substantial analysis by Ritchie of each individual movement with simultaneous score snapshots – a formidable but instructive lecture for any student, amateur or professional. For the performance he uses widely varied registrations from an intimate single string stop for Contrapunctus 3 to a plenum with reeds and mixture in Contrapunctis 11. All the registrations (and organ specifications) are given in the accompanying booklet. The second CD contains tracks from Ritchie’s 11-volume Bach Complete Works set recorded on three other American organs. Ritchie’s playing is neither metronomic nor flamboyant, but respectful and unmannered with subtle rubato. A student of Helmut Walcha, he also gives us Walcha’s completion of the final unfinished fugue. This is the second DVD I have seen made by Will Fraser of Fugue State Films and it confirms my impression that this is a company to watch closely. Fraser wrote of his projects in OR Feb 2010 and readers can learn more about this particular Bach recording there. I really don’t have enough superlatives for this generous and imaginative production.
John Henderson
Organists’ Review, August 2010
“What a feast! … I really don’t have enough superlatives for this generous and imaginative production.”
John Henderson
Organists’ Review, August 2010
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