01-May-2000
"(...) The final summation, it turns out, was the B minor Mass. "The Art of Fugue" was completed in an early version by 1742, eight years before Bach's death, and later taken up again. In the dizzyingly complex final fugue from 1748-49, with three independent subjects, and a fourth (the collection's unifying theme) still to be introduced, Bach -- yea, even Bach -- may simply have reached an impasse and set the work aside, not intending to publish it.(...)"
- 'The Art of Fugue': The Weight and Drama in Bach's Complexity, James R. Oestreich, NYTimes, 4/29/00