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The true work of art is not beautiful in the way an animal, a flower or a stretch of countryside is beautiful. It is a consciously created thing, in which the human need for form triumphs over the randomness of objects. Our lives are fragmented and distracted: things start up in our feelings without finding their completion. Very little is revealed to us in such a way that it’s significance can be fully understood. In art, however, we create a realm of the imagination, in which each beginning finds its end, and each fragment is part of a meaningful whole. The subject of a Bach fugue seems to develop of its own accord, filling musical space and moving logically towards closure. But it is not an exercise in mathematics. Every theme in Bach is pregnant with emotion, moving with the rhythm of the listener’s inner life. Bach is taking you into an imagined space, and presenting you, in that space, with the image of your own fulfillment. – Sir Roger Scruton on J.S. Bach
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Bach – Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 – Van Doeselaar | Netherlands Bach Society
“From Disney’s Fantasia to The Phantom of the Opera, the opening of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, performed by Leo van Doeselaar for All of Bach, has provided many memorable moments. The secret is in the striking first note, followed by that brief, tense moment of silence and the overpowering descending series of notes (or variations on it, like in Pirates of the Caribbean). Unfortunately, Bach’s own score has not survived, which has led to many speculations on the creation date of this wild and original composition that is actually not very ‘Bach-like’. Recorded for the project All of Bach on October 8th 2013 at St Martin’s Church, Groningen.” Netherlands Bach Society
Dispatches from the Asylum 