Bach - Quaerendo Invenietis

In 2022-23 Kenneth presents a new programme, Bach - Quaerendo Invenietis that celebrates the genius of Bach's contrapuntal works, including extracts from several of the great composer's masterpieces - The Well-Tempered Clavier, Musical Offering, Goldberg Variations... and The Art of Fugue, as well as the extraordinary Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

Bach - The Art of Fugue

Following on from the Partitas, the Goldberg Variations, and the Well-Tempered Clavier, Kenneth Weiss immersed himself in the Art of Fugue during the summer of 2019.

“I started working on the Art of Fugue during the summer of 2019, following an invitation to perform the work with the viol ensemble Phantasm in the Lausanne Bach Festival in November 2020. I rapidly became deeply immersed in the work, almost to the point of obsession. I inevitably returned to it in the isolation of the Covid-19 lockdown, and as it is proving to be a welcome solace, I have decided to share it on YouTube.

“To take time from a world of distraction, to be fully present in an alternate world of majesty, is a gift accessible to everyone through Bach’s Art of Fugue. In his last composition, Bach took his unsurpassed skill of polyphonic writing to even greater heights. Limiting himself to a single theme and spinning an increasingly complex series of contrapuntal variations he created a monument for the ages.

“The theme itself, which retains its original essence while undergoing variations, can be seen as representing our constantly evolving life force. That the final fugue, in which he writes his own name B-A-C-H (b flat, a, c, b natural) as a musical subject, is unfinished, adds to the powerful experience of the work.

“As we listen, the creative spirit that lives within each one of us is joined with Bach’s force and spirit - unfinished and eternal.”

Kenneth Weiss's recording of The Art of Fugue on the 1782 Taskin harpsichord belonging to the Museu Nacional da Música at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Portugal, in May 2021 will be released on 25th February on the Paraty Label.

Kenneth is always happy to revive programmes: a French music recital centred on his transcription of Rebel’s Les Eléments and including character pieces by several other French composers; Bach - A la françoise, that he performed on tour in Japan in February 2018; the Scarlatti programme performed in the 2018 Radio France Montpellier Festival; extracts from the Well-Tempered Clavier; the Goldberg Variations, and of course programmes that delve into the dreamy world of his Virginalists recordings A Cleare Day and Heaven & Earth.