maldv/crabcanon · Datasets at Hugging Face

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MOST GRACIOUS KING!


In deepest humility I dedicate herewith to Your Majesty a musical offering, the
noblest part of which derives from Your Majesty's own august hand. With awesome
pleasure I still remember the very special Royal grace when, some time ago, during
my visit in Potsdam, Your Majesty's Self deigned to play to me a theme for a fugue
upon the clavier, and at the same time charged me most graciously to carry it out in
Your Majesty's most august presence. To obey Your Majesty's command was my most
humble dim. I noticed very soon, however, that, for lack of necessary preparation, the
execution of the task did not fare as well as such an excellent theme demanded. I
resoled therefore and promptly pledged myself to work out this right Royal theme
more fully, and then make it known to the world. This resolve has now been carried
out as well as possible, and it has none other than this irreproachable intent, to glorify,
if only in a small point, the fame of a monarch whose greatness and power, as in all
the sciences of war and peace, so especially in music, everyone must admire and
revere. I make bold to add this most humble request: may Your Majesty deign to
dignify the present modest labor with a gracious acceptance, and continue to grant
Your Majesty’s most august Royal grace to


Leipzig, July 7 1747


Your Majesty's

most humble and obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR


Some twenty-seven years later, when Bach had been dead for twentyfour years, a Baron
named Gottfried van Swieten-to whom, incidentally, Forkel dedicated his biography of
Bach, and Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony-had a conversation with King
Frederick, which he reported as follows:


He [Frederick] spoke to me, among other things, of music, and of a great organist
named Bach, who has been for a while in Berlin. This aitist [Wilhelm Friedemann
Bach] is endowed with a talent superior, in depth of harmonic knowledge and power
of execution, to any I have heard or can imagine, while those who knew his father
claim that he, in turn, was even greater. The King


Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering


6














is of this opinion, and to prove it to me he sang aloud a chromatic fugue subject which
he had given this old Bach, who on the spot had made of it a fugue in four paits, then
in five parts, and finally in eight parts.'

Of course there is no way of knowing whether it was King Frederick or Baron van
Swieten who magnified the story into larger-than-life proportions. But it shows how
powerful Bach's legend had become by that time. To give an idea of how extraordinary a
six-part fugue is, in the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, containing forty-eight
Preludes and Fugues, only two have as many as five parts, and nowhere is there a six-pait
fugue! One could probably liken the task of improvising a six-part fugue to the playing of
sixty simultaneous blindfold games of chess, and winning them all. To improvise an
eight-part fugue is really beyond human capability.

In the copy which Bach sent to King Frederick, on the page preceding the first sheet of
music, was the following inscription:


dTVcyis lam (untie El Jvl icjua Gnoi lica A rtc ^Rdolula .

FIGURE4.

("At the King's Command, the Song and the Remainder Resolved with Canonic Art.")
Here Bach is punning on the word "canonic", since it means not only "with canons" but
also "in the best possible way". The initials of this inscription are

RICERCAR

-an Italian word, meaning "to seek". And certainly there is a great deal to seek in the
Musical Offering. It consists of one three-part fugue, one six-part fugue, ten canons, and a
trio sonata. Musical scholars have concluded that the three-part fugue must be, in
essence, identical with the one which Bach improvised for King Frederick. The six-pait
fugue is one of Bach's most complex creations, and its theme is, of course, the Royal
Theme. That theme, shown in Figure 3, is a very complex one, rhythmically irregular and
highly chromatic (that is, filled with tones which do not belong to the key it is in). To
write a decent fugue of even two voices based on it would not be easy for the average
musician!

Both of the fugues are inscribed "Ricercar", rather than "Fuga". This is another

MOST GRACIOUS KING!

In deepest humility I dedicate herewith to Your Majesty a musical offering, the

noblest part of which derives from Your Majesty's own august hand. With awesome

pleasure I still remember the very special Royal grace when, some time ago, during

my visit in Potsdam, Your Majesty's Self deigned to play to me a theme for a fugue

upon the clavier, and at the same time charged me most graciously to carry it out in

Your Majesty's most august presence. To obey Your Majesty's command was my most

humble dim. I noticed very soon, however, that, for lack of necessary preparation, the

execution of the task did not fare as well as such an excellent theme demanded. I

resoled therefore and promptly pledged myself to work out this right Royal theme

more fully, and then make it known to the world. This resolve has now been carried

out as well as possible, and it has none other than this irreproachable intent, to glorify,

if only in a small point, the fame of a monarch whose greatness and power, as in all

the sciences of war and peace, so especially in music, everyone must admire and

revere. I make bold to add this most humble request: may Your Majesty deign to

dignify the present modest labor with a gracious acceptance, and continue to grant

Your Majesty’s most august Royal grace to

Leipzig, July 7 1747

Your Majesty's

most humble and obedient servant,

THE AUTHOR

Some twenty-seven years later, when Bach had been dead for twentyfour years, a Baron

named Gottfried van Swieten-to whom, incidentally, Forkel dedicated his biography of

Bach, and Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony-had a conversation with King

Frederick, which he reported as follows:

He [Frederick] spoke to me, among other things, of music, and of a great organist

named Bach, who has been for a while in Berlin. This aitist [Wilhelm Friedemann

Bach] is endowed with a talent superior, in depth of harmonic knowledge and power

of execution, to any I have heard or can imagine, while those who knew his father

claim that he, in turn, was even greater. The King

Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering

6

is of this opinion, and to prove it to me he sang aloud a chromatic fugue subject which

he had given this old Bach, who on the spot had made of it a fugue in four paits, then

in five parts, and finally in eight parts.'

Of course there is no way of knowing whether it was King Frederick or Baron van

Swieten who magnified the story into larger-than-life proportions. But it shows how

powerful Bach's legend had become by that time. To give an idea of how extraordinary a

six-part fugue is, in the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, containing forty-eight

Preludes and Fugues, only two have as many as five parts, and nowhere is there a six-pait

fugue! One could probably liken the task of improvising a six-part fugue to the playing of

sixty simultaneous blindfold games of chess, and winning them all. To improvise an

eight-part fugue is really beyond human capability.

In the copy which Bach sent to King Frederick, on the page preceding the first sheet of

music, was the following inscription:

dTVcyis lam (untie El Jvl icjua Gnoi lica A rtc ^Rdolula .

FIGURE4.

("At the King's Command, the Song and the Remainder Resolved with Canonic Art.")

Here Bach is punning on the word "canonic", since it means not only "with canons" but

also "in the best possible way". The initials of this inscription are

RICERCAR

-an Italian word, meaning "to seek". And certainly there is a great deal to seek in the

Musical Offering. It consists of one three-part fugue, one six-part fugue, ten canons, and a

trio sonata. Musical scholars have concluded that the three-part fugue must be, in

essence, identical with the one which Bach improvised for King Frederick. The six-pait

fugue is one of Bach's most complex creations, and its theme is, of course, the Royal

Theme. That theme, shown in Figure 3, is a very complex one, rhythmically irregular and

highly chromatic (that is, filled with tones which do not belong to the key it is in). To

write a decent fugue of even two voices based on it would not be easy for the average

musician!

Both of the fugues are inscribed "Ricercar", rather than "Fuga". This is another