Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Gustav Leonhardt, Robert Kohnen :: J.S. Bach: Musical Offering, BWV1079

This extraordinary collection of music was an "offering" Bach made to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1740-1786). At a command performance in 1747, Frederick suggested a melody and Bach improvised on it at the organ. Greatly impressed, the king rewarded the composer handsomely; Bach promptly went home to Leipzig and prepared an entire set of pieces based on the royal theme as a "musical offering" to the monarch. Frederick was himself a flutist and sometime composer, so Bach filled his offering with craft as well as art, no doubt knowing that his technical skill would be appreciated. A Musical Offering contains 10 ingenious canons, including a "perpetual" canon (these could, in theory, go on forever), "crab" canons (as one instrument plays its part, a second plays the same melody backward), and a "puzzle" canon (the musicians must figure out where the second voice is intended to enter); two ricercare (like fugues but less strict); and a trio sonata for flute, violin, and continuo. This 1974 recording was the first major Musical Offering recorded on period instruments, and the performers include Dutch early-music legends Gustav Leonhardt and the three Kuijken brothers. They give an elegant account of these erudite pieces--Leonhardt makes the opening Ricercar a 3 Voci sound almost majestic (on a harpsichord, no less)--and the Kuijkens play the trio sonata sweetly and soulfully. --Matthew Westphal