A personal present to Frederick II "The Great"
For seven years, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach's second son, had to put up with his patron's burdensome request to invite his father for being able to hear the old master live at the court in Potsdam. Back in 1740, Carl Philipp had arrived at the court of the King of Prussia, Frederick II The Great, so nicknamed because of his skills in the military arts (among other arts, such as playing the flute). From then on he was a court harpsichordist and chamber musician, poorly paid and phlegmatically exploited by Frederick, who had the habit of asking Carl Philipp for the obligatory accompaniment for the expression of his inner world, at any time of the day or night.
The 62-year-old father of modern harmony left Leipzig and finally arrived in Potsdam on May 7, 1747. Joyful, Frederick II the Great escorted the master through the corridors and rooms of the royal residence of Sanssouci, making him stop at every keyboard on the way, and inviting him to improvise a fugue on a theme that the king claimed as his own invention. Bach stayed there for two months in the company of his son and Frederick.
After returning to Leipzig, the master revisited Frederick's theme. He expanded it, added ideas to it, dressed it up in various forms, and dedicated the result to the monarch. He published it two months later.
"Musical Offering", BWV 1079
In its final form, the set of pieces consists of ten canons, a trio sonata (for flute –of course–, violin and basso continuo), and two ricercares (an old word for fugues). The work responds to a sort of obsession Bach had in the last decade of his life: the writing of cyclical works, on a large scale, where to explore exhaustively the contrapuntal possibilities of a brief and simple theme.
The master had already made brilliant forays into this in the Goldberg Variations of 1741-42. And at the time of the Offering, he was simultaneously working on The Art of the Fugue, his farewell act in this remarkable autumnal passion.
Frederick's response
The reception on Frederick's part seems, sadly, to have followed the fate of the Brandenburg Concertos. Frederick went off to war shortly after receiving the scores, and to this day it is unknown whether he loved them or not, or whether he ever played the sonata on his transverse flute, accompanied by Carl Philipp Emanuel, naturally.
Bach did not specify any instrumentation for the fugues and canons. It is customary to play them on keyboard instruments, but they can also be performed on other instruments. In 1935 they were orchestrated by the composer Anton Webern.
Ricercar at six – six-voice fugue
The complete performance of the work takes approximately one hour. Presented here is the eight-minute Ricercar a 6 (six-voice fugue) section, in a version by Israeli pianist Asaf Kleinman, on the maestro's birthday, which would have been 334 years old for the occasion.
