21st Century Bach

The organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach, exploreed in depth, through simply-presented performances, using innovative filming techniques to offer dramatic new perspectives on the works. Views from inside the mechanism of the organ show the workings, mirrors catch new angles, and endoscopic cameras burrow right down inside the pipes, while aerial shots are created using cameras mounted on small helium-filled balloons floating freely through the air. The performer for all the programmes is John Scott Whiteley, the Organist Emeritus of York Minster, and a world-renowned expert in Bach performance. To place the music in an authentic cultural context, all the filming was done in locations around Germany and the Netherlands, using historic pipe organs surviving from J S Bach's time - some of which he is even known to have played himself. The monumental 18th-century organs are works of art in themselves The title sequence was designed by Damien Hirst.