Art of Fugue

Johann Sebastian Bach plays a key role in her life - she is today one of the most significant interpreters of his music. The remarkable biography of this celebrated pianist gives her a unique position in the world of music. Her life has taken her from the re-education camps of the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Paris, where her international career as a pianist began rather late, but for that all the more successful. In Leipzig, where Bach held his final professional position and where he composed The Art of Fugue, Zhu Xiao-Mei recorded this contrapuntal masterpiece, which is for her "the absolute zenith of polyphonic art." As she says, "The Art of Fugue exercises a total fascination on you. It's like a magnet: you can't detach yourself from it. It is music that opens the gates to an infinite world where time no longer exists; a world where beauty and peace reign supreme, detached from all earthly contingencies."