Jean-Sébastien Bach
The musical offering

The Musical Offering with The Art of the Fugue offers us a pinnacle of chamber music.

King Frederick II of Prussia welcomed Johann Sebastian Bach and his son in the spring of 1747. As a knowledgeable flautist, the king had submitted a theme to the musician so that he could use it to improvise as was commonly done at the time. It was only on his return to Leipzig that Bach began to compose this cycle of variations on the royal theme: a three-part, six-canon fugue, a canonical fugue, a trio sonata and an accompanied six-part fugue two cannons. This immense work truly marks the culmination of all his research into contrapuntal writing. Bach had the whole thing published at his own expense before sending it to Frederick II on July 7, 1747. The dedication mentions in Latin: “Regis jussu cantio et reliqua canonicae arte resoluta” (By order of the king the tune and the rest are treated according to the art of the canon). Regarding these canons Bach allows himself to add a touch of humor since he indicates annotations always in Latin such as Quaerendo invenietis (Seek you will find) or Notulis crescentibus crestat fortuna regis (That with the notes that increase, fortune increases of the king). François Lazarevitch confides: “This work, which is so enigmatic, almost esoteric, poses many questions…” But he insists: “This music which is the fruit of a work of the mind pushed to such a level of concentration and perfection, I would like to play it in a warm and embodied way, in a word: dancing. » Is not this how witnesses of Bach’s playing described it, who “even managed to give his fugues, despite the interweaving of their separate parts, a rhythm as easy as it is striking… from the beginning to the end? the end as if these fugues had been mere minuets”. The trio sonata written on the same subject will be played by four: François Lazarevitch on flute, Josef Zak on violin, Lucile boulanger on viola da gamba and Maude Gratton on harpsichord. François Lazarevitch clarified: “I am happy to be able to share the adventure of this program with these musicians united in the real complicity that we have created over the years. »

Photo © Jean-Baptiste Millot

4 musicians
François Lazarevitch : transverse flute
Josef Zak : violin
Lucile Boulanger : viola da gamba
Maude Gratton : harpsichord

Duration : ± 1h