Speaking of Peggy, who is starting a collection of classical recordings,
Don Satz says,

>I'd recommend she sample Bach's Art of Fugue from Savall on Astree,
>Gilbert on Archiv, Nikolayeva on Hyperion, Alessandrini on Opus 111, or
>Moroney on Harmonia Mundi.  This is some of Bach's most challenging and
>rewarding music.

Bach's Der Kunste der Fuge was the subject of a lengthy discussion on
this list a few months back.  I only half-followed the discussion (hey,
this list does get a bit much at times), particulary since that was one
celebrated piece of music that I never warmed to.  But partially in
response to the discussion on the list, I bought a copy of an arrangement
of it that totally changed my perception of the work.  It was an
arrangement for string quartet by a composer I've come to appreciate in
the past year, Robert Simpson, and was performed by the Delme Quartet
and released on the hyperion label (I think).  I've not heard any of the
recordings Don cited, but arrangements of this work that I have heard-
arrangements for piano, or Stokowski's orchestral transcription- left
me cold.  However, with a string quartet even I could hope to make some
sense of the interplay of voices in this work, and I can now at least see
why that work fosters such a sense of awe on the part of discriminating
listeners, and caused such a sensation when it was reconstructed by a young
Swiss student musician several decades ago.  To render the work for string
quartet, Simpson had to change the key, but his arrangement truly works for
me in a way that other recordings have not.  So, I encourage those who,
like myself, may have spurned this work to try hear it in a new light.

Larry