We don’t know what pinnacle our minds can possibly reach. What is certain is that in composing Die Kunst der Fuge (the Art of the Fugue) Johann Sebastian Bach went with his musical speculation reaching out to the Absolute so far that he almost touches it. This was the concert by Accademia Bizantina, in a sextet on this occasion, that took place on the 10th of July in Sant’Apollinare in Classe. It was part of the 29th Ravenna Festival.
Ottavio Dantone, conductor and harpsichordist, was coordinating the other five musicians as a princeps, beating times and suggesting feelings, interpreting Bach’s masterpiece so as to offer the public a shining example of beauty in its most refined form. This Bach work surely is one of the most difficult to perform: its instrumental destination is difficult to tell. Accademia Bizantina offered a reading with a rich tone palette thanks to the string quartet, a harpsichord and an organ. As a consequence the range of effects that they can use is broad. The two players who contributed to this amazing tonal rang more than the others were certainly the organist Stefano Demicheli and Mauro Valli: from his cello came musical pearls that could have easily been close to the Absolute.