The Musical Offering

Abstract

The work consists of two fugues (or ricercari), II canons and a sonata for flute, violin, ‘cello and clavichord. With the exception of the sonata and one perpetual canon, the music of the original is not scored, and looks rather theoretical and forbidding to the music lover not initiated into the secrets of counterpoint. Bach indicates the form of the canons only by giving their principal line and the entries and number of the voices; they must first be worked out before they can be read or played, and technically they are often extremely subtle. In one instance two voices move simultaneously in opposite directions; in another one voice announces a variation of the theme, a second a different variation, which is also played by a third, but at half the speed (per augmentationem) and in the exact inversion (per contrario motu); or the canon strangely modulates at the end of each repeat and passes step by step through the keys of the tonal system, rising ad infinitum, like Jacob's ladder. And over one canon Bach simply wrote “Seek and ye shall find,” without even telling us the number of voices! … I myself have found no fewer than four solutions: two equally satisfactory and correct, and two rather modern in style.