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Bach's work The Art of Fugue, which consists of 14 fugues and 4 canons, represents a specific contrapuntal cycle: all the themes it is build on are based on a transformation of a single opening theme. The work was composed as Bach's final offer for a membership in Mizler's society of artists. Historical data about the society, as well as the fact that Bach dealt with the problem area of temperament, point to his understanding of Pythagorean doctrine. This leads to the hypothesis about the symbolic content of the piece. The paper determines a parallel between this Bach's cycle and the renaissance idea of 'change' (this idea is an interpretation of a mysterious archaic text written on 13 emerald tablets24). The symbolics of this Bach's piece is recognised as a demonstration of understanding the 'secret of creativity'.

The analysis of mutual dependence of historical compositional, historical interpretative practice and the properties of historical instruments is essential for baroque style revival. The Baroque music epoch is dominated by the neo-Platonic idea of the ability of music to demonstrate harmony in cosmos, human society and nature. The three basic principles of baroque music, improvisation, ornamentation and polyphony, are all rooted in the idea of music harmony, whose 'key' has been hidden in figured (thorough) bass. Reconsideration of the Italian, French and German baroque music reveals various concepts of universal harmony, and different ways of its reflections in music. Baroque music revival reconsiders the ancient question of the role of music in society and the interpreter's power. The true value of historical interpretative practice revival is seen as revitalization of the musician's freedom, creativity and inspiration in the improvisation practice.