Offering – Fantasy on a Royal Theme (1976)

Clarinet and Piano – 13 mins.
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Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Offering: Fantasy on a Royal Theme (1976) for clarinet and piano is compulsively obsessed by the pitch sets, rhythms, and motives found in the theme given by Frederick the Great to Bach as challenge to Bach’s contrapuntal skill. Bach responded with a series of ricercars, canons and a trio sonata called the Musical Offering. Offering pores over the harmony created by the first five notes of the royal theme (sort of a minor triad gone wild), the plodding descending chromatic scale of the middle of the theme, and the sprung dance rhythm which leads to the theme’s cadence. Along the way we run into references to an English suite, a Mozart piano concerto, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and finally the Art of the Fugue.