Review: BBC PROMS: ANDRAS SCHIFF PLAYS BACH, Royal Albert Hall

It's a special 'you had to be there' moment in the world of live music, with master pianist Sir Andras Schiff taking centre stage in a compelling late-morning concert at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

A supremely expressive musician born in Budapest, declared a British citizen in 2001 and knighted for services to music in 2014, Schiff grabs the attention of the audience from the first quiet moments of the mysterious and fiendishly difficult The Art of Fugue.

Written during the last decade of composer Johann Sebastian Bach's life, The Art of Fugue's an incomplete work of unspecified instrumentation (left unfinished upon Bach's death in 1750) intended to demonstrate all the possibilities of counterpoint (combination of separate music lines) writing. Bach's climax of experimentation consists of 14 fugues and four canons in D minor, using variations of a single subject that increase in complexity as the work proceeds.  

Amazingly, Schiff completely enthrals the audience for 80 minutes, with no break or interval. The only small pause is the brief help of colleague Schaghajegh Nosrati, making her Proms debut, for two fugues requiring a second player.

It's no mean feat turning a sequence of exercises into a mesmeric meditation with such confidence and skill. But Schiff – who also conducts orchestras in Europe and America, and lectures on the interpretation of music he plays ­– pulls it off with panache and a deftness of touch, producing sublime sounds of pure clarity.

Each fugue has a different texture in his capable hands, forming different shapes and versions of what comes before, causing time to slow and then escalate with intensity.

Naturally, there's anticipation in the air towards the conclusion of the concert, as everyone wonders how Schiff will conclude the unfinished work.

It's a thrilling ending when Schiff simply stops mid-phrase, holds his hands in the air – and then stops. The ensuing hesitant silence is followed by joyous applause and heartfelt cries of bravo. You had to be there. And some of us were lucky enough to savour such a special silence.

Andras Schiff Plays Bach at the Royal Albert Hall is available on BBC Sounds bbc.co.uk/proms. The BBC Proms is at the Royal Albert Hall until September 13.