J.S.Bach
The Musical Offering
Ensemble Sonnerie
Monica Huggett direction
Virgin Veritas
flac, cue, log and full scans
J.S.Bach
The Musical Offering
Ramin Bahrami piano
Soloists of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Decca
digital download, front cover
J.S.Bach
The Musical Offering
Orchestral Version of Igor Markevitch
Arnhem PO
Christopher Lyndon-Gee
Naxos
digital download, booklet
J.S.Bach
The Musical Offering
Reinhard Goebel
Musica Antiqua Koln
Deustsche Grammophon
J.S.Bach
The Musical Offering
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Karl Münchinger
Decca/Legends 1971
digital download, cover
digital download, cover
Anton Webern
Five movements for String Quartet, Op. 5 (1909)
Im sommerwind (Idyl for large orchestra) (1904)
Passacaglia for Orchestra, Op. 1
Six Pieces for Orchestra Op. 6
Schubert: Deutsche Tänze orch. Webern
Schubert: Deutsche Tänze orch. Webern
Bach/Webern: Ricercata from The Musical Offering
Pierre Boulez
Berliner Philharmoniker
Pierre Boulez
Berliner Philharmoniker
DG 1995
flac, cue, log, cover
Markevitch was not the first, and will not be the last, to attempt a realisation for performance of the Musical Offering. His solution involves reordering the canons, interpolating one within the Sonata and fusing the nine remaining canons in sequence, here called Theme with Variations with one doubled. The effect is one of development and movement and what one may perhaps call symphonic arch, with all the sense of cumulative tension that that implies. Markevitch has constructed a four-movement work; Ricercare a 3 voci, The Theme with Variations, the Sonata and the concluding Fugue a 6 – Markevitch’s own nomenclature though more properly known as the Ricercare a 6. As conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee points out in his authoritative notes Markevitch also employs three orchestral groupings and plots them stereophonically on stage - the Disposition des Instruments, his orchestral plan, is printed at the end of the booklet. Looking at it from the audience’s visual perspective one can see that in the middle is the Sonata group – harpsichord, solo strings, oboe and the others – and to the left and right of the conductor are Orchestras 1 and 2, comprised entirely of strings. Orchestra 3 includes winds and continuo, amongst others.
Markevitch was inspired to this realisation by his teacher Nadia Boulanger – and she completed the keyboard continuo part. It was first performed in 1950 and Markevitch went on to record it six years later, even going so far as to programme it in his New York debut. His achievement is one of architectural logic and cohesion fused with aural clarity. Textures are refined, the orchestral layout becoming a source of fruitful conjunctions and interplay. It’s noticeable how the oboe’s entry in the Quaerendo invenietis (which Lyndon-Gee rightly calls "shocking") achieves this impact through just these means. The schema is assured and logical and the resolution is noble in its cumulative power and there is perhaps one more element in its success. Bach’s may or may not have ever been intended as a performable work in toto but in his realisation Markevitch gives formal lucidity to the work and plays on the contrast between the intimacy of the continuo and Sonata group and the grandeur of the full ensemble that surrounds it – both physically and metaphorically. To this end the notes are exemplary in examining Markevitch’s motives and musical means of expression and the orchestra does indeed rise to noble heights in their elucidation of the text.
Jonathan Woolf
Among the Offerings available I chose the ones that seemed most relevant to illustrate a certain concept of realization. A work in the middle of Jabberwocky and the highest mathematical and metaphysical abstraction, however, still produces a strong spiritual and aesthetic impression. From Webern to Goebel, from Markevitch to Bahrami, the sound spectrum is refracted and reflected in the royal theme and in the even more regal elaboration of Bach. As a corollary I include a story by my compatriot Julio Córtazar (that unfortunately I did not get in English), which speaks more of Gesualdo than anything else, but whose structure is a high tribute to the formal ingenuity of Bach.
Among the Offerings available I chose the ones that seemed most relevant to illustrate a certain concept of realization. A work in the middle of Jabberwocky and the highest mathematical and metaphysical abstraction, however, still produces a strong spiritual and aesthetic impression. From Webern to Goebel, from Markevitch to Bahrami, the sound spectrum is refracted and reflected in the royal theme and in the even more regal elaboration of Bach. As a corollary I include a story by my compatriot Julio Córtazar (that unfortunately I did not get in English), which speaks more of Gesualdo than anything else, but whose structure is a high tribute to the formal ingenuity of Bach.