Description
The Musical Offering owes its origin to Johann Sebastian Bach\x27s visit to the Prussian court of Frederick II, for whom his son Carl Philipp Emanuel served as harpsichordist. The memorable occasion of the king\x27s encounter with the \x22\x22famous Capellmeister Bach of Leipzig\x22\x22 on May 7\-8, 1747 was fully reported within only a few days by the newspapers in Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Magdeburg. They also mention Bach\x27s promise, expressed at the court, that he intended \x22\x22to set . . . down on paper in a regular fugue, and have...engraved on copper\x22\x22 the \x22\x22exceedingly beautiful\x22\x22 theme which the king had placed before him. Of course, upon his return from the journey Bach did not confine himself to the perfecting of the improvised fugue (as it probably appears in the 3\-part ricercar). To the further manipulations of the Thema Regium belong the 6\-part ricercar, as a belated fulfilment of the royal desire for a \x22\x22fugue with six obbligato parts\x22\x22 for the improvisation of which Bach had only trusted himself with a theme of his own choosing, then the trio sonata as a special gift to the flute\-playing monarch for the enrichment of his repertoire of chamber music and finally a series of ten canonic settings. The composition of the entire work was completed in July 1747; the print appeared at the Leipzig Michaelmas fair at the end of September of the same year. \- Urtext of the New Bach Edition