Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 [81:26]
Thierry ESCAICH (b. 1965)
Completion of Contrapunctus XIV
Eloïse Bella Kohn (piano)
rec. February & March 2021, Teldex Studio, Berlin
HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC21049 [38:39 + 42:77]
Eloïse Bella Kohn joins that peculiar company of pianists who’ve stared into the abyss of Bach’s unfinished Art of Fugue and decided not merely to perform it but to commission a solution to its most tantalizing problem—the truncated Contrapunctus XIV, which breaks off mid-phrase at measure 239, just as Bach introduces his own name as a musical cipher. The manuscript, they say, fell from his dying hands. Romantic nonsense, perhaps, but the silence that follows those final notes has haunted musicians for centuries.
Thierry Escaich’s completion, heard here, takes a different path from the numerous other attempts to finish what Bach left suspended. Where some composers have tried to ape Bach’s style so thoroughly that the seams disappear, Escaich—himself a formidable organist and improviser—opts for transparency. His continuation acknowledges its own belatedness. You can hear where the 18th century ends and the 21st begins, not through jarring anachronism but through a subtle shift in harmonic density, a slight thickening of the contrapuntal texture that speaks in a contemporary French accent while maintaining the architectural logic Bach established. It’s respectful without being obsequious, and it brings the work to a conclusion that feels earned rather than imposed.
But of course the completion is only one element in this 81-minute journey through Bach’s final contrapuntal testament. Kohn’s approach to the complete cycle falls somewhere between the extremes she might have chosen. She’s recorded this in the resonant space of Teldex Studio—that converted radio broadcast hall in Berlin where so many recent recordings have been made—and the engineers have captured a warm, slightly distant sound that gives each voice room to breathe without losing clarity in the denser passages.
The opening Contrapunctus I establishes her interpretive stance immediately. She takes a moderate tempo, neither the brisk clip that treats these pieces as intellectual exercises nor the funereal pace that mistakes severity for profundity. There’s air between the notes. Her articulation favors legato connections over the sharply detached style some pianists adopt in pursuit of a quasi-harpsichord aesthetic—a choice I find sensible, given that Bach himself never specified an instrument for this work and the piano’s sustaining capacity reveals inner-voice motion that vanishes on instruments with faster decay.
What strikes me most forcefully about Kohn’s readings is their sense of discovery within discipline. She doesn’t impose a grand interpretive concept onto the entire cycle; instead, each fugue receives individual consideration while maintaining structural coherence across the whole. The mirror fugues—Contrapuncti XII and XIII—emerge with particular clarity, their inversions and retrogrades audible without being underlined. She trusts Bach’s architecture to reveal itself.
The four canons that punctuate the collection get varied treatment. In the canon at the octave she finds an almost playful quality, while the augmentation canon takes on darker hues. This isn’t arbitrary characterization but rather an acknowledgment that these pieces, though all built from the same basic material, explore different expressive territories. The canon in contrary motion—that brain-teaser where the second voice mirrors the first both melodically and rhythmically—comes across with remarkable lucidity, each strand distinct yet integrated.
Where Kohn occasionally falters is in sustaining momentum through the longer, more complex fugues. Contrapunctus VIII, with its three subjects, sometimes feels sectional rather than organically developing. She articulates each new entrance with such care that the cumulative drive dissipates. Compare this with Schaghajegh Nosrati’s recent release, where expressiveness coexists with forward motion—Nosrati proves that you can shape phrases meaningfully without extending duration to the point of stasis. Or consider Filippo Gorini’s introspective approach, which finds poetry in slowness without losing structural tension.
The double and triple fugues present their own challenges. These are the works where Bach’s contrapuntal ambition reaches its apex, where three distinct subjects must eventually combine in a synthesis that sounds inevitable rather than forced. Kohn handles the mechanics admirably—you can follow each subject’s progress, hear when they combine, appreciate the ingenuity of Bach’s solutions. But there’s sometimes a sense that she’s demonstrating rather than inhabiting these pieces, showing us how they work rather than making us forget to analyze and simply listen.
Which brings us back to that incomplete final fugue and Escaich’s completion. By the time we reach Contrapunctus XIV, we’ve heard 70 minutes of Bach’s most rigorous thinking, and the appearance of his name in musical notation—B-flat, A, C, B-natural in German nomenclature—arrives with almost shocking intimacy. Here is the composer signing his work, inserting himself into the abstract machinery of counterpoint. And then… nothing. Or rather, nothing from Bach himself.
Escaich’s continuation emerges from that silence with considerable skill. He develops the four-note BACH motif through a series of increasingly chromatic transformations, building toward a climax that feels both contemporary and historically aware. The final pages grow dense, almost orchestral in texture, before settling into a closing section that achieves genuine repose. Does it sound like Bach would have written it? No. Does it provide a satisfying conclusion to this monument of unfinished music? Yes, more or less.
The recording quality serves Kohn well. The Steinway has been captured with warmth and detail, the bass register full without being boomy, the treble clear without brittleness. In the quieter passages you can hear the action of the keys, small mechanical sounds that remind you this is a physical instrument being played by human hands—details that some engineers would edit out but which add a sense of presence.
Kohn’s achievement here is real but qualified. She’s given us a thoughtful, carefully prepared account of this inexhaustible music, one that rewards attention and reveals much about Bach’s contrapuntal craft. But it doesn’t displace the finest versions in the catalog. The sense of magnetic discovery that marks the greatest performances—the feeling that the pianist is finding these pieces anew, even while honoring their structure—emerges only intermittently. This is accomplished Bach playing, intelligent and musical, without quite achieving transcendence.
The Escaich completion makes this release distinctive, and anyone curious about contemporary solutions to Bach’s final enigma will want to hear it. As a complete cycle, though, this Art of Fugue remains more admirable than essential—a solid addition to a crowded field rather than a revelation that redefines our understanding of this endlessly fascinating music.
