The Art of Fugue is one of Bach’s most misunderstood works. As if all the other great Passions, Masses, instrumental suites, concertos and so on were not enough, Bach apparently set out in this work to demonstrate just what could be done with one of music’s great intellectual achievements, the fugue.

There is the myth that he died while in the act of the composition of its last section: in fact he all but finished it some four years before his death, but always meant to go back to it. There is also the widely held misconception that it is a dry, academic work. It might be conceded that, if it is heard via one instrument only, or even by an unvarying ensemble of strings (say), then it might be somewhat challenging to follow its extraordinary complexity. If you feel any of those things, then this recording is for you.

The outstanding Academy for Early Music Berlin offers a riveting journey through this wondrous music, using all the textures at its disposal. For example, the famous Contrapunctus 1 is delivered by a string quartet. It’s followed by a solo harpsichord, then two oboes, bassoon and trombone, then the whole orchestra, then back to solo harpsichord. Thus the traversal of this epic is never in the same vehicle for too long. We walk, ride, fly, are borne in a splendid carriage, and walk once again.

The result is that the journey is continually fascinating, its complexity all the more rewarding, right up to the last Contrapunctus 18, on the theme B, A, C, B-flat, or in German notation, BACH. No wonder that one critic said, “Bach’s name should not have been Bach (‘brook’ in German) but ‘Meer’ (‘ocean’)”.