Warner Classics / Das Alte Werk: Bach — Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079 | Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Audio CD)

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Warner Classics / Das Alte Werk / Parlophone Records Limited
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
• Work: Musikalisches Opfer (Musical Offering), BWV 1079
• Conductor / Director: Nikolaus Harnoncourt
• Ensemble: Concentus Musicus Wien
• Original Recording Year: 1970 (Teldec Classics)
• Reissue Year: 2016
• Genre: Classical
• Style: Baroque, Contrapuntal / Chamber
• UPC / Barcode: 0190295931629
• LC: 06019
• Condition: New / Factory Sealed

Product Features

• Format: CD (ADD — Analog recording, Digital transfer)
• Discs: 1
• Total tracks: 16
• Total runtime: 46 minutes 41 seconds
• Booklet: English text / Texte en français / Deutscher Text
• Manufactured in: EU
• Packaging: Standard jewel case, factory shrink-wrapped

Performers:

• Herbert Tachezi — Harpsichord
• Leopold Stastny — Flauto traverso
• Alice Harnoncourt, Walter Pfeifer — Violin
• Kurt Theiner — Viola
• Nikolaus Harnoncourt — Tenor viola, Violoncello

Overview

The Musical Offering is one of Bach's most intellectually demanding works, and one of his most personal. In 1747, Bach visited the court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam, where the king presented him with a long chromatic theme and asked him to improvise a fugue upon it. Bach obliged at the keyboard, then took the theme home to Leipzig and fashioned it into this extraordinary collection: ricercari, canons of escalating complexity, and a trio sonata, all built on the royal theme.

Harnoncourt's 1970 recording with the Concentus Musicus Wien was one of the early period-performance benchmarks for this work and has remained in the catalogue — with good reason. The playing is precise and transparent, the continuo part taken by Harnoncourt himself on tenor viola and cello, and the ensemble textures are lean in the way that authentic baroque practice demands. The Ricercare a 6 (track 9), in particular, is given with a weight and deliberation that suits its dense six-voice counterpoint.

The trio sonata (tracks 12–16) — for flute, violin, and continuo — provides the disc's most sustained melodic interest, moving through four movements with a grace that contrasts effectively with the more austere canonic writing that precedes it.

Released here in the Das Alte Werk series under Warner Classics, this 2016 reissue presents the original Teldec recording in clean digital transfer. A reliable, historically serious account of a masterpiece.

Interesting Facts

• The Musical Offering was composed in 1747, just three years before Bach's death, and represents one of his most concentrated demonstrations of contrapuntal mastery; it was published by Bach himself the same year.
• King Frederick the Great (Frederick II of Prussia) was himself an accomplished flautist — the trio sonata in the Musical Offering includes a prominent flute part that some scholars believe was intended to be played by the king.
• The "royal theme" (thema regium) given to Bach by Frederick is deliberately awkward and chromatic — a challenge designed to test Bach's powers; the resulting Ricercare a 6 is considered one of the most complex fugues he ever wrote.
• Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929–2016) co-founded the Concentus Musicus Wien in 1953 with his wife Alice; it was one of the first professional period-instrument ensembles in the world and played a defining role in the early-music revival of the second half of the 20th century.
• The Das Alte Werk label, launched by Teldec in the 1950s, was one of the most important catalysts for the period-performance movement, releasing dozens of groundbreaking early-music recordings across several decades.
• Harnoncourt's approach to the Musical Offering was notable for its choice to perform the canons with named instruments rather than leaving the instrumentation open — a performance decision that remains debated among Bach scholars.

Track Listing

1. Ricercare a 3 — 6'06"
2. Canon perpetuus super thema regium — 0'58"

5 Canones diversi super thema regium:

1. Canon a 2 — 0'58"
2. Canon a 2 Violini in unisono — 0'57"
3. Canon a 2 per motum contrarium — 0'40"
4. Canon a 2 per augmentationem, contrario motu — 1'53"
5. Canon a 2 per tonos — 2'24"
6. Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente — 1'52"
7. Ricercare a 6 — 7'02"
8. Canon a 2 — 1'17"
9. Canon a 4 — 2'04"

Trio:

1. Largo — 5'52"
2. Allegro — 6'24"
3. Andante — 2'48"
4. Allegro — 3'07"
5. Canon perpetuus — 1'41"

Publishers

Original recording: ℗ 1970 Teldec Classics, a Warner Music UK Division. This edition: © 2016 Parlophone Records Limited, a Warner Music Group Company. Published under Warner Classics / Das Alte Werk. Made in the EU. LC 06019.

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