Beyond B A C H - the Answer of Liszt

Josef Danhauser - Eine Matinée bei Liszt, 1840
(Liszt, am Flügel phantasierend)
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
source: Bridgeman Art Library
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Liszt_at_the_Piano.JPG)

Liszt is fantasizing at the piano, surrounded by the whole artistic elite of his time (the whole event was imagined, of course, by the author of the painting): Dumas-père, George Sand, and Daniel Stern are seated; Berlioz (or maybe Victor Hugo), Niccolò Paganini, and Gioachino Rossini are standing; Byron observes the gathering from a painting hanged on the wall; the statue of Joan of Arc is on the far left; a bust of Beethoven is on the piano; it's made by Anton Dietrich; and the piano itself is made by Conrad Graf.

A great gathering, no doubt about it. Could you imagine Bach among them? Let's re-phrase this question: was there a Romanticist empathy for the Baroque? Generally not, and it seems to me that the passion for the architecture of Baroque music came back in the twentieth century: Schoenberg, Webern, and all others ejusdem farinae were building a totally new world, hence their keen interest for the basic structures (while Romanticists were rebels living still in a well-established universe).

All this is true, while the case of Bach is different. Maybe because his genius has transcended epochs. And it was the Romanticist period that discovered Bachian transcendence. During the epoch of the great Classics he was considered sometimes a bit too old for their taste. It was Mendelssohn who made obvious his perpetual importance.

What have Liszt seen beyond the B A C H bar, the last bar of Bach's last work, the Unfinished Fugue?

no copyright infringement intended
(http://www.flagmusic.com/work.php?r=Prelude_and_Fugue_on_BACH)

The Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B A C H is the answer brought by Liszt: a dialog between Baroque and Romanticism; an exploration of Romanticist potentialities within a Baroque work; a Romanticist journey throughout the Baroque realm.

Liszt: Fantasia und Fuge über das Thema B A C H
Rafael Ferreyra plays on a Mutin Cavaillé Coll organ
at Basílica del Santísimo Sacramento, Buenos Aires
(video by stylus fantasticus)

(The B A C H motif)

(Liszt)