According to John Eliot Gardiner in his biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, nothing in Bach's rigid Lutheran schooling explains the scientific precision of his work. However, that precision has attracted scientists and mathematicians in particular to the composer's work, not least as its search for structure and beauty seems to chime with their own approach to their subject.
In this Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture Oxford Mathematician James Sparks, himself a former organ scholar at Selwyn College Cambridge, demonstrates just how explicit Bach's mathematical framing is and City of London Sinfonia elucidate with excerpts from the Goldberg Variations. This was one of our most successful Public Lectures, an evening where the Sciences and the Humanities really were in harmony.
Please note this film does not include the full concert performance of the Goldberg Variations.