Saturday July 12 2014 Aria
Amore traditore, Tu non m’inganni più. Non voglio più catene, Non voglio affanni, pene, Cordoglio e servitù.
Traitorous love, you will deceive me no more . I desire chains no more, I don’t want suffering, pains, heartache or servitude.
Recitative
Voglio provar, Se posso sanar L’anima mia dalla piaga fatale, E viver si può senza il tuo strale; Non sia più la speranza Lusinga del dolore, E la gioja nel mio core, Più tuo scherzo sarà nella mia costanza.
I want to try and see if I can heal my soul of this fatal wound, and if it can live without your arrow; then no more will hope dazzle with sorrow and joy my heart, your games will have no place within my constancy.
Aria
Chi in amore ha nemica la sorte, È follia, se non lascia d’amar. Sprezzi l’alma le crude ritorte, Se non trova mercede al penar.
Whoever has fate as his enemy in love is a fool if he does not give up loving. May the soul fracture its cruel bonds if it cannot find mercy for its suffering.
Text: Unknown
Johann Sebastian Bach: Trio Sopr’ il Soggetto Reale (“Musical Offering” Trio in C Minor) BWV 1079 Flute, Violin, Basso continuo
In 1747, Bach made a journey to visit his son Carl Philipp Emanuel in Potsdam. The meeting that occurred there between Johann Sebastian Bach and his son’s employer, King Frederick the Great of Prussia, is well documented. Frederick was an ardent musical amateur, a flute player, and composer who kept a lively musical establishment at his court, and who evidently regarded the arrival of “old Bach” with some excitement. “With his flute in his hand he … turned to the assembled musicians, and said with a kind of agitation, ‘Gentlemen, old Bach is come.’ The flute was now laid aside; and old Bach … was immediately summoned to the palace.” (W. F. Bach, quoted by Forkel) “The king immediately ordered that [Bach] should be allowed to enter, and as he did so His Majesty went to the so-called forte and piano [a pianoforte] and condescended, in person and without any preparation, to play to Kapellmeister Bach a theme on which to improvise a fugue. This the Kapellmeister did so successfully that not only was His Majesty moved to express his most gracious satisfaction with it, but all those present were astonished. Herr Bach found the theme he was given of such unusual beauty that he intends to work it out on paper as a regular fugue and have it engraved on copper.” (from the Spenersche Zeitung, 11 May, 1747)
Indeed the theme is a fine one; in the end Bach’s copper engraving titled Das Musikalische Opfer (The Musical Offering), issued about two months later, was to include not only his improvised fugue (of which the Ricercar a tre is thought to be the written version), but a series of canons of various degrees of complexity, each built upon
some version of the King’s theme; the massive fugue in six parts, and, lest this display of contrapuntal virtuosity seem too forbidding, a trio sonata whose middle Andante movement is the epitome of the new style—style galant, a highly mannered protocol of phrasing and ornamentation popular in the mid-eighteenth century—as well as the only piece in the whole collection that is not based entirely upon the theme. The whole was elegantly engraved and surmounted with an acrostic:
Regis Issu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta
Translation: “The theme given by the King with additions resolved in the canonic style” The first letters of the inscription spell out the word ricercar, a type of fugue.
The pieces in the Musical Offering were printed in a sequence that does not work particularly well in performance. A variety of solutions to the questions of a proper performance order have been put forth by scholars. What may seem like a strange oversight in the work’s presentation may in fact be a reflection of its intended use: as a collection to be pored over, studied for its intricacies and the lessons they contain, played piecemeal, discussed with friends, and then maybe played again—in other words, enjoyed in a leisurely way that is often difficult for non-Royalty to achieve. — Elisabeth Le Guin
Il Soggetto Reale (The King’s Theme)
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