Concertante of London, Nicholas Jackson - J.S. Bach: A Musical Offering, BWV 1079, Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1059 & Trio Sonata in D Minor, BWV 527 (2014)
BAND/ARTIST: Concertante of London, Nicholas Jackson
- Title: J.S. Bach: A Musical Offering, BWV 1079, Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1059 & Trio Sonata in D Minor, BWV 527
- Year Of Release: 2014
- Label: SOMM Recordings
- Genre: Classical
- Quality: flac lossless +Booklet
- Total Time: 01:09:20
- Total Size: 430 mb
- WebSite: Album Preview
Tracklist
01. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: I. Moderato (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
02. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: II. Siciliano (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
03. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: III. Allegro (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
04. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Ricercar a 3
05. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon perpetuus (1)
06. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 per motum contrarium
07. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (1)
08. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (2)
09. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Fuga canonica in Epidiapente
10. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Ricercar a 6
11. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon perpetuus (2)
12. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (3)
13. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (4)
14. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 4
15. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 per Augmentationem
16. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 - Modulating
17. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: I. Largo
18. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: II. Allegro
19. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: III. Andante
20. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: IV. Allegro
21. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: I. Andante (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
22. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: II. Adagio, ma non tanto, e dolce (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
23. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: III. Vivace (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
Nicholas Jackson’s realisation of Bach’s Musical Offering makes this an interesting new release for the SOMM catalogue. Also of interest is how this astonishing work came into being. In brief, the work has its roots in a meeting between the composer and Frederick II in May of 1747. The King wanted to show Bach a novelty: the piano had been invented some years earlier, and he now owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Silbermann. During his anticipated visit to Frederick’s palace in Potsdam, Bach received from the King a long and complex musical figure on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. Frederick, then, challenged Bach to make that into a six-voice fugue. Two months after the meeting Bach published a set of pieces on this theme which we now know as The Musical Offering. Bach inscribed the piece Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta, the first letters of which spell out the word Ricercar, an early name for the word Fugue.
Apart from the Trio Sonata which concludes the Offering which is written for flute, violin and basso continuo, the pieces have few indications of which instruments are meant to play them.
In this realisation the composer, harpsichordist and organist Sir Nicholas Jackson was motivated by the thought that the whole work might be effectively performed by just the four players involved in the Trio Sonata – undoubtedly the finest example of a Trio Sonata ever written. Hence the instrumental distribution for the 6-part Ricercar. In Bach’s Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord as well as the ones for Viola da Gamba & Harpsichord, two of the contrapuntal lines are played on the harpsichord. For this arrangement the harpsichord plays 3 of the voices. Two of the canons are not playable on the flute but work well when played on the recorder – an instrument that all baroque flautists would have also played.
The Musical Offering might well have been called the ‘Art of Canon’ as in it Bach included ten canons, which were written as puzzles for which solutions have to be found. In five of these he used the royal theme as a ‘cantus firmus’ alongside canons. In the remaining five he made decorated versions of the theme and in some of these actually using versions of the theme itself as canons. In the 4th canon, for instance, although two instruments play the same music, one starts at the beginning while the other starts at the end and works backwards. But the astonishing technical feats demonstrated in these compositions are always subservient to an artistic result. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sublime Canon in augmentation and contrary motion in which the violin imitates the cello at half speed and upside down, while – in this realisation – the recorder plays a decorated version of the royal theme. Above this canon Bach wrote ‘As the notes increase in value, so may the fortunes of the King.’ Above another canon that modulates up a tone each time he wrote ‘As the modulations rise, so may the glory of the King.’
The couplings on this disc are no less fascinating. Only the first nine bars (the opening tutti) exist of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No. 8. As these are identical with the opening of the first Sinfonia from Cantata No. 35 it has been possible for Gustav Leonhardt to reconstruct this concerto using the two instrumental Sinfonias for the outer movements, and writing a brilliant harpsichord part above Bach’s own orchestral parts.
This disc concludes with the Trio Sonata in D minor BWV 527, arranged by Nicholas Jackson. This is an arrangement of the 3rd of Bach’s six Trio Sonatas for organ. A version of the 2nd movement also appears as the middle movement of the Triple Concerto transposed up a 5th and with the addition of an additional pizzicato accompanying line for the violin, which is in turn accompanied by the flute playing staccato in the repeated sections. This arrangement has been adapted here, putting it back into its original key and re-arranging Bach’s extra pizzicato/staccato accompanying line. In the outer movements the brilliance of the flute and violin parts makes the work resemble a Concerto for these two instruments.
01. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: I. Moderato (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
02. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: II. Siciliano (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
03. Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059: III. Allegro (Reconstructed by G. Leonhardt)
04. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Ricercar a 3
05. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon perpetuus (1)
06. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 per motum contrarium
07. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (1)
08. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (2)
09. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Fuga canonica in Epidiapente
10. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Ricercar a 6
11. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon perpetuus (2)
12. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (3)
13. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 (4)
14. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 4
15. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 per Augmentationem
16. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: Canon a 2 - Modulating
17. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: I. Largo
18. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: II. Allegro
19. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: III. Andante
20. Musical Offering, BWV 1079: IV. Allegro
21. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: I. Andante (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
22. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: II. Adagio, ma non tanto, e dolce (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
23. Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, BWV 527: III. Vivace (Arr. for Flute, Violin and Basso Continuo)
Nicholas Jackson’s realisation of Bach’s Musical Offering makes this an interesting new release for the SOMM catalogue. Also of interest is how this astonishing work came into being. In brief, the work has its roots in a meeting between the composer and Frederick II in May of 1747. The King wanted to show Bach a novelty: the piano had been invented some years earlier, and he now owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Silbermann. During his anticipated visit to Frederick’s palace in Potsdam, Bach received from the King a long and complex musical figure on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. Frederick, then, challenged Bach to make that into a six-voice fugue. Two months after the meeting Bach published a set of pieces on this theme which we now know as The Musical Offering. Bach inscribed the piece Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta, the first letters of which spell out the word Ricercar, an early name for the word Fugue.
Apart from the Trio Sonata which concludes the Offering which is written for flute, violin and basso continuo, the pieces have few indications of which instruments are meant to play them.
In this realisation the composer, harpsichordist and organist Sir Nicholas Jackson was motivated by the thought that the whole work might be effectively performed by just the four players involved in the Trio Sonata – undoubtedly the finest example of a Trio Sonata ever written. Hence the instrumental distribution for the 6-part Ricercar. In Bach’s Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord as well as the ones for Viola da Gamba & Harpsichord, two of the contrapuntal lines are played on the harpsichord. For this arrangement the harpsichord plays 3 of the voices. Two of the canons are not playable on the flute but work well when played on the recorder – an instrument that all baroque flautists would have also played.
The Musical Offering might well have been called the ‘Art of Canon’ as in it Bach included ten canons, which were written as puzzles for which solutions have to be found. In five of these he used the royal theme as a ‘cantus firmus’ alongside canons. In the remaining five he made decorated versions of the theme and in some of these actually using versions of the theme itself as canons. In the 4th canon, for instance, although two instruments play the same music, one starts at the beginning while the other starts at the end and works backwards. But the astonishing technical feats demonstrated in these compositions are always subservient to an artistic result. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sublime Canon in augmentation and contrary motion in which the violin imitates the cello at half speed and upside down, while – in this realisation – the recorder plays a decorated version of the royal theme. Above this canon Bach wrote ‘As the notes increase in value, so may the fortunes of the King.’ Above another canon that modulates up a tone each time he wrote ‘As the modulations rise, so may the glory of the King.’
The couplings on this disc are no less fascinating. Only the first nine bars (the opening tutti) exist of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No. 8. As these are identical with the opening of the first Sinfonia from Cantata No. 35 it has been possible for Gustav Leonhardt to reconstruct this concerto using the two instrumental Sinfonias for the outer movements, and writing a brilliant harpsichord part above Bach’s own orchestral parts.
This disc concludes with the Trio Sonata in D minor BWV 527, arranged by Nicholas Jackson. This is an arrangement of the 3rd of Bach’s six Trio Sonatas for organ. A version of the 2nd movement also appears as the middle movement of the Triple Concerto transposed up a 5th and with the addition of an additional pizzicato accompanying line for the violin, which is in turn accompanied by the flute playing staccato in the repeated sections. This arrangement has been adapted here, putting it back into its original key and re-arranging Bach’s extra pizzicato/staccato accompanying line. In the outer movements the brilliance of the flute and violin parts makes the work resemble a Concerto for these two instruments.
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