Bach The Musical Offering

In 1747 Bach wrote a note to go with the piece on this disc: "To Your Majesty [Frederick the Great] I dedicate herewith, in deepest submissiveness, a Musical Offering . . . This undertaking has now been accomplished to the best of my ability, and it has no other object than exalting, if even in only a small degree, the fame of a Monarch whose greatness and power in all the arts both of war and of peace, but especially in music, everyone must admire and honor." And composers today complain about having to fill out NEA grant applications! Here we have a warm and carefully-crafted performance by the original group of instruments, Ensemble Sonnerie, made up of some of the most prominent musicians in the British early music scene.

There are many apocryphal stories in the classical-music world, but the one in which Frederick the Great challenged Bach to improvise a six-part fugue on a theme of the king's own invention is true, and The Musical Offering was, after a period of further reflection, the result. As with all the works of Bach's later years, the work is both great art and a "teaching piece," which shows everything that he thought could be done with the king's theme. The Trio Sonata based on the theme is the only major piece of chamber music from Bach's last decades in Leipzig, and that makes the work and essential cornerstone of any Bach collection. This performance, led by Neville Marriner, is both polished and lively, and very well recorded. At a "twofer" price, coupled with The Art of Fugue, it's the preferred version of the work on modern instruments.

Bach’s Musical Offering, one of the most fascinating works in music history, still raises questions even after countless interpretations and performances. Composed three years before his death, it embodies everything that makes Bach so captivating: magnificent music that is consummate in all parameters, hidden messages, romantic-transfigured history, enigmatic masterpieces, numerology… and most often it is met by nebulous, apprehensive respect.

In this new recording Phantasm make no excuses for arranging some of Bach’s remarkable keyboard music for a consort of viols. Led by director Laurence Dreyfus they go on a conscious mission to uncover the hidden riches concealed behind the more neutral resources of the harpsichord and organ so as to liberate the fascinating characters lurking in the shadows and behind the scenes within Bach’s individual polyphonic lines. In the process of fugal confrontation among three to six musicians, they come face to face with the astounding psychological insights of Bach’s most radical inventions.

Arseniy Gusev's performances have been described as a blend of superb technical proficiency and lyrical romanticism seldom found in equal measure, especially in one so young.

Arseniy Gusev's performances have been described as a blend of superb technical proficiency and lyrical romanticism seldom found in equal measure, especially in one so young.

The conceit that informs this disc is that Bach and Webern's meditations of life, death, and eternity are essentially complementary, that Bach's Lutheran faith and Baroque aesthetic and Webern's Catholic faith and Modernist aesthetic speak of a shared belief in the luminous and the numinous. Indeed, so pervasive is the conceit that complementary performances of Webern's orchestration of Bach's Ricercata in six voices from The Musical Offering opens and closes the disc. And so successful is the conceit that this otherwise tired trick is incredibly effective.