Description
Kaisa Kortelainen, traverso
Jouko Laivuori, cembalo
Kaisa Kallinen, baroque violin
Ritva Kaukola, baroque viola
Jukka Rautasalo, baroque cello
Johann Sebastian Bach: Musikalisches Opfer BWV 1079
In 1747, the already elderly Johann Sebastian Bach traveled from his hometown Leipzig to Potsdam to meet his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who worked as a cembalist at the court of Frederick the Great. The journey gained new significance when the king, having learned of Bach's presence, also wanted to meet him. The meeting became one of the most famous anecdotes in music history.
While the court followed the events, the King presented Bach with a theme he had invented and asked the composer to improvise a fugue on it. Bach sat at the keyboard and played a three‑voice fugue based on the theme. Then the king requested a six‑voice fugue. This was an overwhelming task even for a master of improvisation like Bach. Bach asked to compose the fugue later and send the work, printed on copper plate, to the king.
Two months later the composition was printed and titled "Musikalisches Opfer" (Musical Offering). The printed result expanded into a collection of contrapuntal studies based on the king's theme: two fugues titled Ricercar, ten masterful canons (nine of them in the form of riddling canons), and an extensive trio sonata for the king's own instruments – flute, violin and continuo.
It is not known whether the king ever acknowledged the gift or compensated Bach for the printing costs. It is known that the king was not particularly interested in the esoteric contrapuntal skill considered old‑fashioned; his own musical taste, in line with contemporary fashion, leaned toward the light, galant style containing very little counterpoint.
The collection Musicalisches Opfer is a unique combination of music intended for listening and mathematically perfect contrapuntal creations, believed to have a direct connection to the harmony of the spheres and thus to the universal structures supporting the cosmos. Through the riddling canons it was thought possible to study and understand the nature of God's creative work. They were believed to be like distilled elements from the harmony of the spheres – the smallest common denominators God used when creating the world.