An illuminated visualization of Bach’s The Well Tempered Clavier

Johann Sebastian Bach‘s The Well Tempered Clavier, with music performed by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard in a film directed by Alan Warburton.

“Before starting work on our Well-Tempered Clavier animation, director and visual artist Alan Warburton immersed himself in Bach’s music by boarding a ‘random’ bus and listening to the first prelude and fugue for over two hours. ‘By the time I’d found my way back home,’ he says, ‘I had digested how complex the music was – especially the Fugue. I realised I needed to keep the animation simple so the viewer could focus on the music.'”

“But if the animation itself was going to be simple, producing it would be anything but. Alan’s incredible design incorporated many thousands of separate CGI lights, every one of which had to be tailored to the precise duration of Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s note strikes…”

The project, commissioned by the now-shuttered Sinfini Music, was acquired by Deutsche Grammophon.

Updated video.