The Words of Albert Schweitzer and the Music of Bach premiered in Nashville, Tennessee, at Scarritt-Bennett Center, 1995, and has since been presented in churches, colleges and universities throughout the United States; in Canada, Belgium, France and Denmark.

      The Overture to the acclaimed Words of Albert Schweitzer and the Music of Bach is the recording of Bach’s Toccata by the legendary Leopold Stokowski. You may remember the opening of Disney’s landmark film, Fantasia, with Stokowski conducting the Toccata and Fugue. The Toccata is fierce, rushing, and highlighted by contrasts of tone.

       The Toccata and Fugue was written for the organ, but Stokowski was known for transcribing many of Bach’s keyboard works for the orchestra. Stokowski’s first performance of the new arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue with the Philadelphia Orchestra created a sensation, and he added it permanently to his symphonic repertoire. In the program. the Fugue, joyful and exuberant, follows the Toccata immediately with noted concert organist, Gail Archer, playing the magnificent Schoenstein Organ in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

       When the houselights go down and the glorious opening music fills the hall, the first of 275 images are seen on the large theatre screen: the magnificent painting of Albert Schweitzer and Johann Sebastian Bach, by portrait artist, Connie Erickson.