In my youth, senior organists who had grown up in the pre-war era would often enquire apropos a player in whom I had expressed an interest: ‘What is his Bach like?’ Their main concern seemed to be whether the player had adopted what they loosely termed ‘The Baroque’ (what would now be understood as ‘authentic’ or ‘historically informed’ performance practice) and forsaken the GD Cunningham, Marcel Dupré or Harold Darke traditions of (to modern ears) Romantic indulgence.

Half a century on, while still tending to tread carefully through the minefield of musical aesthetics, we can now afford to be slightly more relaxed in our approach to Bach interpretation. Warmth and opulence are now encouraged; hard-line doctrinaire austerity can be eschewed.

What this wonderful new Fugue State Films production sets out to do is to open our minds, to avoid prevailing dogma and to interpret Bach’s organ music with a full appreciation of the context of his musical life and the rich variety of schools of organ-building with which he would have been familiar. DVD 1 consists of a three-and-a-half-hour documentary, broken down into seven chapters and featuring a distinguished discussion between Daniel Moult (Head of Organ at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) and Professor Martin Schmeding (Director of the European Organ Academy).

The cameras visit a quartet of wonderful instruments housed in Lutheran churches in central Germany. Two of them are in Rötha, a village close to Leipzig, both built by Gottfried Silbermann: a 1721 instrument in the Georgenkirche containing 23 stops over two manuals and a 1724 single-manual in the Marienkirche, complete with historical nicotine-stained accidentals! The Jacobikirche in Sangerhausen boasts a resplendent and very well-appointed organ by Zacharias Hildebrandt, completed in 1728. Most impressive, however, is the three-manual Trost organ in the Stadtkirche, Waltershausen, south-west of Gotha. Dating from 1730, the luxurious tonal palette of this exotic instrument conjures a quasi-orchestral richness, complete with some endearingly clattery pedal actions. It is also visually stunning, being mounted high up, level with the second gallery. Full demonstrations of each instrument complete the second DVD.

Following a chronological order, we hear how Bach developed his compositional style from the tradition of Buxtehudian rhetoric (with brief references to other composers of the North German School) to his role as a teacher and preacher. A generous selection of chorale preludes illustrates perfectly how his treatment of the chorale melody was always driven by the theology of the text and its communication. I particularly enjoyed the hair-raising harmonic twists and turns in Allein Gott in der Höh, BWV715 (disc 1, track 7)

Of the non-chorale-based, ‘free’ pieces there are purposeful renditions of several pietistic Preludes and objective Fugues. Moult has the slightly more driven – though flexible – approach, for example in the Fugue in D minor, BWV539. Schmeding offers an outstanding masterclass in his analysis of the architecture of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV582. Plaudits, too, to his hard-working registrant, Marie Schmeding, who displays the dexterity of a rally car navigator!

Moult offers an engaging exposition of the influence on Bach of the Italianate concerto form while reminding the viewer that Bach worked within the accepted norms of Affekte and the emotional language of his times. Both presenters deal unequivocally with the knotty issue of manual changes (answer: they are fine), playing Bach too quickly (on historic instruments there are practical limitations of winding, the heaviness of the action as well as the tracker mechanisms), and – to bring us tangibly closer to the real Bach – there are several sections featuring their co-presenter, Christine Blanken, filmed at the Bach Archive in Leipzig. A really enlightening treat. The pair of generous audio CDs make outstandingly good Bach recitals in their own right, recorded in crystal-clear quality.

Will Fraser and his technical team have created another landmark document which should be snapped up by every conservatoire and university music department globally without delay. If only it had been available to this young organist all those years ago!