To all outward appearances – even the label on which it has been released – this would seem to be a filmed performance of The Art of Fugue. But that’s not the case at all. True, one of the three discs encased within a very hefty and attractive box is a DVD, but The Art of Fugue itself appears on two audio CDs.

That’s no disappointment. American Bach specialist George Ritchie offers up such an intensely focused and directly communicative performance that it’s hard to think what any visual element could contribute other than providing an irritating distraction. Ritchie writes in the accompanying booklet that this is a work that “pleases the mind and the ear in equal measure” and in the DVD sets out his interpretative goal, hoping that listeners will be “thinking about the music, not what I’m doing to it”. As good as his word, Ritchie’s CD performances are of the type that demand the closest attention from listeners – if this was on film, it would be one best experienced with eyes firmly shut – and while his playing is neat and utterly devoid of idiosyncrasy, it draws the ear so fully into Bach’s music that I have no hesitation in describing this as a reference recording. Which is not to say that Ritchie is guilty of the odd indiscretion – a strangely stiff and lumpy approach to Contrapunctus 11 and a some waywardness in the Canon alla Ottava – but these barely ruffle the surface and any doubts are quickly smoothed over by the lovely organ sound and Ritchie’s subtle and highly sensitive use of registration, all details of which are mapped out in the booklet.

The contents of the DVD are a worthy accessory to the two CDs. On a practical level, navigation is poor with no real method, other than trial and error, of finding specific points on the disc; with two films and three hours’ playing time, that is a major drawback. But it’s worth persevering with random searches and copious use of the forward and backward buttons, for the first of those films is a tremendously illuminating and magnificently produced documentary on the background to the recording itself, with interviews with Christoph Wolff and Messrs Richards and Fowkes (who built the Arizona organ on which the recording was made), as well as with Ritchie himself enthusing about the work and, in one of the film’s more fascinating episodes, the completion of the final Fugue by Ritchie’s own teacher Helmut Walcha.

The second film is a section-by-section description of the work with Ritchie highlighting the problems (illustrated by the edition of the score used in the recordings) and giving his solutions to them; an indulgence which most performers would envy but which is justified here by the uniquely dedicated work of everyone involved in what is, for me, the finest recording of Bach’s Art of Fugue irrespective of media or instrument.