Johann Sebastian Bach's The Musical Offering, BWV 1079,
consists of 16 movements and is slightly longer than 50
minutes in duration, resulting from a challenge to
develop a theme played for the composer by Frederick
the Great. The meeting took place on May 7, 1747, and
Bach's son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, who often
accompanied Frederick in performances of chamber music,
arranged for the two men to meet. By then, J.S. Bach,
"the old Bach of Leipzig," was considered as a writer
of old-fashioned musi...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach's The Musical Offering, BWV 1079,
consists of 16 movements and is slightly longer than 50
minutes in duration, resulting from a challenge to
develop a theme played for the composer by Frederick
the Great. The meeting took place on May 7, 1747, and
Bach's son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, who often
accompanied Frederick in performances of chamber music,
arranged for the two men to meet. By then, J.S. Bach,
"the old Bach of Leipzig," was considered as a writer
of old-fashioned music, but his improvising skills were
still legendary. Frederick, the King of Prussia, did
not approve of overly complicated music, clearly
preferring the fashionable galant style to the
complicated fugues of high Baroque music. In an
apparent attempt to confound the old master, the
monarch offered an awkward chromatic subject for the
elderly composer to improvise upon, and was amazed by
Bach's handling of this "Royal Theme." Afterward, the
improviser insisted that he still had not done the
theme justice, and that he would endeavor to do so.
Later that year, The Musical Offering appeared in
print, dedicated to Frederick the Great, and published
at the composer's own expense. It demonstrates the full
arsenal of the Baroque composer of fugues and does it
with more fluency than any other composer of the time
would have been able to provide. Of course, it takes
into account the monarch's passion for flute playing
and offers a prominent part for the instrument.
Unfortunately, this gesture of respect and reverence
more or less backfired. The flute part is fiendishly
difficult, and there is no allowance for the monarch's
clear preference for galant music; it is as Baroque as
anything else Bach wrote, except where he takes galant
ideas and makes them more Baroque. For example, instead
of performing a simple "sigh" gesture in the flute
sonata movement, a descending interval that sounds like
a sigh, Bach sequences it in different pitches until it
is as difficult and Baroque as anything as he had
written before. Galant music is meant to be simple, a
return to melody over harmony, and is the first step
toward the Classical music of Haydn and Mozart.
Furthering the conflict between Bach's offering and
Frederick's goodwill was the theological inferences
imbedded in the music. Much of it is in a holy code
that was clearly derivative of church music and
Frederick, a man of the enlightenment, had little use
for anything liturgical. In the centuries that divide
the composer's world-view and the current millennium,
the many Lutheran inferences of the music have lost the
impact they once had.
The Musical Offering can be compared to The Art of
Fugue for its thorough handling of the theme. The
quality of the music is diverse, heavenly, and
inexhaustible. It stands as one of the finest pieces of
chamber music from the Baroque era, and is a favorite
among musicians who enjoy a challenge.
Although originally written for unspecified instruments
(including: Flute, Harpsichord & 2 Violins), I created
this Arrangement of the Canon a 2 - Quaerendo
invenietis (BWV 1079 No. 5) for Viola Duet.
PARTITION