Musical Offering: Transcending Time

A digital production available online only, presented by Early Music Vancouver

Alexander Weimann, Harpsichord; Chloe Meyers, Violin; Natalie Mackie, Gamba; Soile Stratkauskas, Flute

J.S. Bach’s Musical Offering was initiated in 1747 when Frederick the Great of Prussia, himself a superb flutist, gave to Bach a complicated theme upon which the composer improvised to the astonishment of all present. Within the next few weeks Bach perfected and presented to Frederick a composition which exhibits Bach’s boundless imagination and profound depth of expression in a brilliant set of canons and fugues, and a trio sonata that is without parallel in 18th-century chamber music, all based on this royal theme. Jocelyn Morlock’s “Revenant” is based on reversing the theme from Bach’s Musical Offering.

Access to the concert is free, but donations are greatly appreciated. Concert will remain online one year from premiere date.

Presented in partnership with the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts through the support of the Chan Endowment Fund at the University of British Columbia.

PROGRAM:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
“The Musical Offering” BWV 1079:

Exordium
Thema Regium (Royal Theme)
Ricercar à 3

Narratio
Canon perpetuus super Thema Regium
Canones diversi super Thema Regium:

Canon à 2
Canon à 2 in unisono
Canon à 2 per Motum contrarium
Canon à 2 per Augmentationem, contrario Motu ‘Notulis crescentibus crescat Fortuna Regis’
Canon à 2 per tonos ‘Ascendente Molulatione ascendat Gloria Regis’

Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente

Propositio
Ricercar à 6

Argumentatio
Canon à 2 Quaerando Invenietis
Canon à 4
Sonata sopr’il Soggeto Reale: Largo, Allegro, Andante, Allegro

Conclusio
Canon perpetuus

Jocelyn Morlock (b.1969)
“Revenant”