Musical Offering BWV 1079

[Opus106]

Here's one: Konstantin Lifshitz on the piano.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here's one: Konstantin Lifshitz on the piano.

I've got that, and I like it very much. It comes coupled with some other goodies, incl. some Frescobaldi toccatas (on piano!).

[czgirb]

My favorite is the Ensemble Sonnerie on Virgin Classics - wonderful variety of instrumentation.

Yup! I'm no doubt that it was a good recording ... but don't forget Jordi Savall
It offers you a different experience ...

[Mandryka]

A particularly beautiful realisation by Gert Zacher of a score which is problematic to say the least. Very imaginative tempos and rubato, IMO natural and convincing; endings of canons are sometimes left "in the air", which is food for thought, but why not? Superb and clear live recording in the church or Niederehe in Eifel, the musicians are playing responsively. This is one of those recordings which give you a hint of what it was like to be at a pretty special concert.

[Mandryka]

An organ transcription of the whole thing played at St Climints in Prague by Josef Popelka, the organ sounds nice, maybe anachronistic but not offensive, and it doesn't sound equally tuned. I can't find any details about it on the web. The performance is attractive IMO, the organ tuning makes the harmonies sound fresh, it's certainly not too heavy, good sense of pace. The trio sonata takes on a grandeur which I for one found revealing.

What's particularly nice is to have a performance which is not like music for a king's drawing room. Just moving it to organ seems to give it gravitas and an abstract quality. Of course there are more authentic performance which don't treat opfer as a galant royal entertainment, but this one does it in a rather original way.

[prémont]

An organ transcription of the whole thing played at St Climints in Prague by Josef Popelka, the organ sounds nice, maybe anachronistic but not offensive, and it doesn't sound equally tuned. I can't find any details about it on the web. The performance is attractive IMO, the organ tuning makes the harmonies sound fresh, it's certainly not too heavy, good sense of pace. The trio sonata takes on a grandeur which I for one found revealing.

I know Popelka's AoF, which I incidentally listened to the day before yesterday. But wasn't aware of the Opfer, so ordered immediately.

[Mandryka]

This is one of my favourite Opfers. I like it so much mainly because of its emotional content. The performance starts off with a series of canons, played by Messori, which seem as tinged with golden nostalgia as much as any late piano music by Brahms. In the middle is the sonata, with its yearning violin. And then it ends with some contrapuntal music, which now seems much more abstract, more at peace. The CD ends with the unfinished fugue from AoF: not a bad place to put it maybe. It's like a pilgrim's progress, an epic.

What is Opfer? A spiritual testament from a thoughtful musician at the end of his career and in fact at the end of his life? A flamboyant job application designed to show of Bach's skills for the court? A galant royal diversion? I think Messori is plumping for the first answer.

[prémont]

This is one of my favourite Opfers. I like it so much mainly because of its emotional content. The performance starts off with a series of canons, played by Messori, which seem as tinged with golden nostalgia as much as any late piano music by Brahms. In the middle is the sonata, with its yearning violin. And then it ends with some contrapuntal music, which now seems much more abstract, more at peace. The CD ends with the unfinished fugue from AoF: not a bad place to put it maybe. It's like a pilgrim's progress, an epic.

What is Opfer? A spiritual testament from a thoughtful musician at the end of his career and in fact at the end of his life? A flamboyant job application designed to show of Bach's skills for the court? A galant royal diversion? I think Messori is plumping for the first answer.

I remember having read someone (probably line notes to a CD) who proposed that Bach's use of the word Opfer carries a double meaning, the other meaning being victim, victim to king Frederick's capriciousness.

BTW this is also one of my favorite Opfers, and the AoF one of my favorite AOF's on harpsichord.

[Jo498]

carries a double meaning, the other meaning being victim, victim to king Frederick's capriciousness.

While victim or sacrifice are today actually more common meanings of Opfer (I was rather puzzled about the title when I first read about it as a teenager) this idea does not sound plausible to me. In what way did Bach suffer? It sounds far too strong language to me and I do not think that such a double meaning would have gone well with the king (something Bach would not risk because of his sons position). And how could Bach mean himself in the title of the work?

[Mandryka]

The contribution of the strings in this Opfer by Koopman is exceptional for the sense of musicians listening and responding to each other, as well as for the expressiveness of their music making - rather melancholy. That makes for some glorious canons. A major achievement IMO.

The sonata seems classical in conception, elegant, refined, not particularly expressive but by no means cold, and with a satisfying feeling of the musicians all enjoying the process.

The flautist seems full of life's joys, and he sounds beautiful. 

There are two versions of the ricercar à 6 - one for strings and flute, and one for two harpsichords (I think.)  The orchestrated version is lyrical and rather peaceful. The keyboard version is articulated and flamboyant, turbulent in fact. It is interesting, and along with the canons for duos of string players, a reason for hearing the Cd.

Good sound.

[Mandryka]

Marie Claire Alain recorded the ricercar à 6 in this her final Bach cycle. The performance a sort of still calm nobility which reminds me very much of Walcha's style in his stereo recording.

[kishnevi]

Mandryka, have you ever heard this one?
I'd be interested in your opinion of it if you have.
I'm a bit prejudiced in its favor because it's the one by which I "learned" this work.

I'm posting the back cover because the front cover is a bit boring: that painting of Friedrich tootling his flute which seems to be the near universal fallback for any recording associated with his court.

[Mandryka]

Returning to this, the orchestrated ricercar à 6 now seems to me to be dominated by the flute, like a little flute concerto. The effect is entirely predictable and hence must be what they were intending, but it does seem strange and it would have been good if they had made a comment about what led them to this instrumentation.

The keyboard ricercar à 6 is indeed with Koopman and Mathot. I suppose having a second player freed them up to ornament the music more richly. It's very Koopmam, about as (un)enjoyable as his art of fugue: brash and stiff and emotionally shallow. It's as if they wanted to provide a cheerful way to end the Opfer. Everything seems so enigmatic with Musical Offering that I'm reluctant to criticise that conception.

[Mandryka]

J.S. BACH: "The musical offering"


No musician except Bach has ever approached so closely, or in such a profound way, the boundary that separates art from science, and Bach succeeded in knocking down this very barrier without sacrificing either mathematical reason or purely musical expressiveness.

The Musical Offering was conceived among Bach's final explorations of esoteric musical issues. The work is rich with multiple meanings: from the simple homage paid to an enlightened monarch, to pure spiritual sacrifice; from a scientific and philosophical dissertation, to the search for mysterious, symbolic significance.

History has given us ample evidence to retrace with ease the birth and completion of this unparalleled work. Bach's visit in May, 1747 to King Frederick II in Potsdam prompted the Sovereign to propose a musical theme that the composer was then to develop extemporaneously. (Frederick II, himself an excellent musician and flautist, was well acquainted with Bach's improvisatory talents.) As the periodicals of the time recorded, Bach proceeded to astound the king and everyone else present by playing on the keyboard a three-part fugue, in a most outstanding manner, followed by a fugue for six parts. Even more importantly, Bach went well beyond the royal commission: he deemed the proposed theme to be worthy of especial study and attention, worthy indeed of further and more complete elaboration.

And so in September of the same year the first edition of The Musical Offering was published. One hundred copies were printed; each consisting of five smaller sheaves or booklets, each of which contained its own numbered pages. In the first such booklet we find the frontispiece with its dedication to Frederick 11 of Prussia, and it is here that the work is presented as an offering to the Sovereign. The second booklet contains the Ricercara 3 and the Canon Perpetuus Super Thema Regium. The third contains diverse Canons; the fourth the Ricercara 6 as well as the Canons for 2 and for 4 voices. Lastly the fifth book contains the Sonata Sopr'il Soggetto Reale and a final Canon perpetuus.

Conflicting theories have been put forward by various scholars as to why the first edition was thus printed in individual sections. Further questions abound concerning the exact order of the passages. Concerning this latter issue, the most convincing theory is that of Ursula Kirkendale, argued also by A. Basso in Frau Musika. According to the scholar, a connection can he drawn between the structure of The Musical Offering and the outline of an oration as set down by Quintiliano in his Institutio Oratorio. Following this outline, each part of The Musical Offering corresponds to a rule of rhetoric, that is, to the different functions of an address or narrative. Thus the work would be divided in two parts. The introduction (exordium) would include respectively the Ricercari in 3 and 6 voices, leaving the tasks of narration and argumentation to the several Canons. The conclusion then of Bach's discourse would he the Sonata and the Canon perpemus — the first of these, freed from strict contrapuntal formality, is suited to move the emotions and sentiments; the second piece stands as the definitive, irrefutable demonstration of reason and of intellectual rigour.

The enigmatic character of The Musical Offering is evident even in the heading that opens the second booklet, just before the beginning of the first piece. The phrase Regis lussu Cantio Et Reliquia Canonica Arm Resoluta, explaining the origins and content of the work, is an acrostic, the initial letters of which spell the word RICERCAR. Moreover in the original printed edition the Canons are not written out in the complete and extensive form heard by the listener but in the form of a puzzle that the performer first must solve, taking into account the given keys and reference points. What's more, the canons are infinite, in that they have no set ending. Instead they repeat themselves indefinitely, always starting again from the beginning, with no solution provided to escape this unending continuity. The performer is left to decide everything, be it the number of repetitions or the moment and manner in which to bring the canons to an appropriate close.

If we probe the rhetorical/musical aspects of the Thema Regium, we notice, after the initial harmonic ascent through the three steps of the C minor triad, the first rhetorical figure including the vertical interval of a minor seventh — A flat to B (Saltus duriusculus) — followed by a second figure that descends chromatically, touching upon every semitone between G and C (Posits duriusculus). According to the theory of the sentiments, these two rhetorical/musical figures serve to express languid emotions and sighs, pain and ultimately extreme pathos. In effect The Musical Offering is permeated by a mood of suffering, of lamentation and of tension, broken only now and again by moments of hope and rebellion.

The opening passage, the Ricercara 3, plays the role of stating the theme and of developing it in the manner considered by the ancients as the most noble and the most suited for interweaving the strands of an argument: the ricercare, the search. The Ricercar a 6, apparently less rigid in structure, has a countersubject with a hinting character, comprised of staccato notes and leaps. It shows a sense of amusement, with its figurations in triplets and its wide breadth. In the central part of the piece the contrapuntal discourse becomes ever more complex, with a series of stretti involving hold chromatic figures.

The Canon perpetuus that follows opens the first set of canons within the framework of the actual narration. The Thema Regium is here enunciated in the central voice while the upper and lower parts are in canon, at the height of a double octave. In the ingeniously constructed Canon a 2 "Cancrizans" (crabs) the second (following) voice begins on the last note of the first (leading) voice and proceeds backwards until it reaches again the first note, in imitation of the movement of crabs. Literature offers something similar in the palindrome, perhaps the most famous example of which appears in Virgil's hexameter "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni."

The Canone a 2 violini in unison comes next, one of the few pieces of the work in which Bach specifies the intended instruments and in which the theme is found in the bass. Afterwards comes the Canone a 2 Per Molum contrarium in which the theme passes to the upper voice, and the two lower voices pursue each other in contrary motion. In the Canon a 2 per Augmentationem contrario Motu we find for the first time a variation of the theme in the middle voice, while the other two parts, in canon, move in contrary motion but with redoubled values, the one with respect to the other.

In the subsequent Canone per Tonos, the Thema Regium undergoes variation in a manner that renders it chromatic from the start, whereas the other two voices play a canon set apart by a fifth. The modulation that occurs during the enunciation is altogether congenial. The theme is put forward and taken up again one tone higher without causing any perceptible harmonic trauma, and so on throughout. This process is itself a rhetorical/musical device, called Auxesis or Climax until the 17th century and Gradatio in the period that followed. The effect produced upon the listener's ear is one of gradual crescendo, like an ever more insistent question, until a climax of emotional tension is achieved.

The piece that concludes the first part of the discussion (Egressus) and comes before the second Exordium is the Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente, a three-part fugue built upon a canon between the two upper parts in fifths. As to the origins of the term "Epidiapente", it was common practice in previous times to express such intervals as unison, a fourth, a fifth, an octave, and so forth, with the Greek terminology Diatessaron, Diapente, Diapason, etc. Thus Bach uses the expression "Epidiapente" to indicate that the following part would sing a fifth above, much as he would have used the term "Subdiapente" had the same part answered a fifth below instead.

The Ricercar a 6 is one of the most imposing contrapuntal creations that Bach ever conceived. The number of the voices, the incredible complicated interplay of the parts, even the piece's remarkable dimensions, comes together in a work that is surely unique within its genre. Its structure recalls the Ricercare in its most ancient form: after the grand initial exposition of the theme, diverse new thematic ideas are stated to be then developed in a fugue; yet within each of these ideas the principle subject appears inserted — an extraordinary interweaving, ruled over by one, great, single thought.

The second set of canons includes two brief canons for two voices in contrary motion, retto and inverso, (Canon a 2 Quaerendo invenietis) and the more extensive canon for four voices (Canon a 4). In the latter the theme is enriched in its variation by passing notes that give it a character both expressive and dramatic.

The moment of greatest intensity within the whole work, the Sonata sopr'il Soggetto Reale, foresees a very precise ensemble, with the flute rising to the role of protagonist, in homage no doubt to the great talents as soloist of Frederick II. In the course of the four movements, the Thema Regium appears in its original form only in the opening Allegro, letting its presence be felt afterward every now and then as a solemn quotation in the lovely context of flowing discourse and formal perfection. In the two slow movements Bach gives an essay of pure musical eloquence and of extraordinary expressive sensitivity with a splendid "affettuoso" style. The Sonata ends with an Allegro in 6/8 time based upon the royal theme, superbly varied with pauses, appoggiature, and chromatic progressions that produce veritable sighs, creating contrast with the subsequent passages in semichromes, bringing the piece to its conclusion in a crescendo of rhythm and dynamics.

After the emotional climax of the Sonata in which the sentiments have been given free rein, the final Canon Perpetuus calls everything back to order by means of its great introspectiveness and its far more rigid and rational control. We find again here the forma mentis characteristic of Bach — a mind-set which, placing spirit above matter, holds within itself impenetrable designs, so loaded with secret symbolism, that posterity is left an inheritance such as might never be comprehended in its fullness.

Ottavio Dantone Translation: AD ITALIA

[prémont]

An organ transcription of the whole thing played at St Climints in Prague by Josef Popelka, the organ sounds nice, maybe anachronistic but not offensive, and it doesn't sound equally tuned. I can't find any details about it on the web. The performance is attractive IMO, the organ tuning makes the harmonies sound fresh, it's certainly not too heavy, good sense of pace. The trio sonata takes on a grandeur which I for one found revealing.

What's particularly nice is to have a performance which is not like music for a king's drawing room. Just moving it to organ seems to give it gravitas and an abstract quality. Of course there are more authentic performance which don't treat opfer as a galant royal entertainment, but this one does it in a rather original way.

Having acquired this and having listened to it I realised, that I knew the recording already. It was pirated by the Baroque Music Club and released on CD under the faked name of Heinrich KLEMM playing the  Sauer Organ, Konzerthalle Ulrichskirche, Halle (Germany).  But the real player is Josef Popelka and the organ the Rieger organ, St. Clements church, Prague. Presently it can be downloaded in good mp3 quality for free here:

http://www.baroquemusic.org/76364Web.html

I agree, that the performance is a bit oldfashioned (it was made 1987), but it is also well paced, balanced and very brilliant - particularly as to the difficult pedal playing in the trio sonata. Indeed very enjoyable.

The organ was designed by Jiri Reinberger and built by Rieger organ builders in 1980. It is built in baroque style, but still the sound of the stops is very modern. It is without doubt equally tuned.

Josef Popelka (born 1954) is a pupil of Jiri Reinberger and Milan Slechta and studied also with Flor Peters and Johannes Ernst Köhler. Popelka also made an equally interesting recording of Art of Fugue.

[prémont]

Mandryka, have you ever heard this one?
I'd be interested in your opinion of it if you have.
I'm a bit prejudiced in its favor because it's the one by which I "learned" this work.

I am not Mandryka, but I know the recording, which I find conventional and earthbound. It hasn´t got much to offer, and the competition is really too strong.

[Mandryka]

Does anyone know who's playing the harpsichord on this (very excellent) recording? I'm assuming that it's Masahiro Arita, but I'm not sure whether or not he's a flautist. Whoever it is, I'd like to hear more music from him.

[Wakefield]

Does anyone know who's playing the harpsichord on this (very excellent) recording? I'm assuming that it's Masahiro Arita, but I'm not sure whether or not he's a flautist. Whoever it is, I'd like to hear more music from him.

The harpsichordist is Chiyoko Arita, Masahiro's wife.

Excellent recording, top-3 in my book, indeed.

BTW, Masahiro Arita recorded an excellent 2-CD set with the flute sonatas, also a top recording.

[Mandryka]

The harpsichordist is Chiyoko Arita, Masahiro's wife.

Excellent recording, top-3 in my book, indeed.

BTW, Masahiro Arita recorded an excellent 2-CD set with the flute sonatas, also a top recording.

Thanks, I wasn't certain which Arita was the flautist and which was the harpsichordist. I shall check out the flute sonatas, and I also noticed the same ensemble has recorded some Rameau chamber music, which I'm also quite keen to hear.

I have one real problem with the Opfer recording, the pauses between tracks seem too long.

[71 dB]

I'm a bit prejudiced in its favor because it's the one by which I "learned" this work.

I'm posting the back cover because the front cover is a bit boring: that painting of Friedrich tootling his flute which seems to be the near universal fallback for any recording associated with his court.

This is what I have and surprisingly my only BWV 1079!  At least I like it a lot.