#ricercar

Domenico Gabrielli (1659-90) - Ricercar for Cello in D-Major. Performed by Christophe Coin, baroque cello.

Orchestra: La Pifarescha, Conductor: Marco Gemmani

Adolph Menzel, Detail of the Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci, 1852 (far left, C. H. Graun, ancestor of V. Nabokov; at the keyboard, C.P.E. Bach)

I’ve shared the backstory to Bach’s Musical Offering before, but I’ll recap it here: One of J.S. Bach’s sons played in Frederick the Great’s court, and one day Bach came to the palace at Potsdam to visit him, and meet the king. Because Bach was a well-known musician with a knack for improvisation, King Frederick wanted to show him the recently invented fortepiano. He asked Bach to improvise a three-voiced fugue on a long and complicated subject [the second half of the melody is a walk down the chromatic scale, hard to keep a fugue harmonically sound per Baroque standards with that], and even with the obstacle of playing a difficult melody on a new instrument, Bach did put together a decent fugue on the spot. But King Frederick was notorious for poking fun at artists in his court, and to try and stump him, he asked Bach to improvise a fugue off the same melody but with SIX voices this time. Instead of trying, Bach smiled and said that was too much for him to do at the time, but he would work on the fugue and send it to the King later. Not only did Bach write the Ricercar a 6, but he also filled an entire book with canons and fugues on the theme, a fantastic display of contrapuntal virtuosity, along with a trio sonata with the flute [King Frederick was a flutist], all as one big F YOU to the court. Even when Bach is at his most playful and humorous, the music is compelling. This piece is heavy of course, but it is also a moving work that feels like it’s struggling with pain. In the 20th century, the serialist composer Anton Webern arranged the work for orchestra, and in doing so, showed his own philosophy toward orchestration. The orchestra never once plays in its entirety, only parts and snippets here and there, coming in and out. Webern focuses on the sound, color, and texture, by breaking the melodies along several lines, bouncing from one instrument group to the next. It’s an interesting way to listen to Bach, taking a very dense fugue and reimagining it as pointillism.

Giovanni Benedetto Platti (1697-1763) - Ricercata No. 3 for Violin and Cello in e-minor, III. Allegro. Performed by Neumeyer Consort on period instruments.

Angelo Ragazzi (1680-1750) - Ricercario sopra il sesto tuono for 2 Violins, Viola and Continuo. Performed by Christoph Timpe/Accademia per Musica on period instruments.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - Ricercar a 3 from “The Musical Offering,” BWV 1079. Performed by Michael Behringer, fortepiano.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - Ricercar a 6 from “The Musical Offering,” BWV 1079. Performed by Ensemble Sonnerie on period instruments.