". . . magnificent recording of the Art of Fugue . . . listening to this recording is itself a transporting experience." reviews Notes, quarterly journal of the Music Library Association

"A lavish production, fully justified by a great performance from George Ritchie . . . the finest recording of Bach's Art of Fugue irrespective of media or instrument." reviews The Gramophone

"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" reviews Choir and Organ

This package consists of
Two CDs and one 3¼-hour DVD

The DVD contains two major video productions about J. S. Bach:

• a 90-minute program entitled "Desert Fugue" featuring a brilliant presentation by leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff concerning what many consider to be Bach's ultimate intellectual and musical creation, The Art of Fugue, discussing the milieu in which it was created. As well, "Desert Fugue" includes George Ritchie's enlightening comments on the work and a fascinating interview with American organbuilders Ralph Richards and Bruce Fowkes, especially regarding their Opus 14 built in the style of organs known to Bach and played by him for most of his career in and near central Germany (with emphasis on Thuringian and Saxon builders Gottfried Silbermann, Zacharias Hildebrandt, and Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost). Briefly and fascinatingly, the DVD compares the sound of a Dutch/North German organ with the very different, almost orchestral, sound of a central German organ of Bach's day.

• George Ritchie lectures on Bach's fugal and compositional techniques especially as they relate to the Art of Fugue, with musical demonstrations. The lecture discusses the entire work generally and each of the 14 contrapuncti in an hour and 51 minutes.

• George Ritchie's performance of the entire Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, on the Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ completed in 2006 at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church, Scottsdale, Arizona. This organ is built in the style known to Bach in his central German homeland of Thuringia.
• George Ritchie's performance of Contrapunctus 14, Fuga a 3 Soggetti, left uncompleted by Bach in Art of Fugue, as completed by Helmut Walcha

• The CDs also contain George Ritchie's performances of other late works of J. S. Bach:

Review by Graeme Kay in Choir and Organ:

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.