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Ein musicalisches Opfer album cover

Album guide

Ein musicalisches Opfer

Jens Schöwings Blue Note Bach

Released
2010
Label
Blacklisted Records
Forces
Piano, Vibraphone, Quartet
Personnel
Jens Schöwing piano, Matthias Entrup vibraphone, Christian Frank double bass, Marc Prietzel drums

Bach’s Musical Offering began when Frederick the Great gave him a theme and asked him to improvise. Schöwing brings that royal theme back into an improvising group, starting with Bach’s crab canon and the endlessly rising canon he later built from it.

The album also tests how far Bach’s music can be shifted rhythmically without losing its identity. Schöwing’s arrangement of the C minor Prelude and Fugue moves music written in four beats into an unusual seven-beat pulse, with vibraphone adding a fourth voice to the piano trio.

Hear both

The classical side contains only the source pieces used on the album, in album order. The jazz side presents the complete album whenever a dependable copy can be embedded.

The originalsJ.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach · classical source works

Ten recordings accompany the ten identified sources; tracks 5 and 7 have none because their exact relationship to The Musical Offering could not be established.

Jazzed upJens Schöwings Blue Note Bach · 2010
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Source works

The album’s complete track listing, with each classical source identified and original compositions marked plainly.

  1. Ein musicalisches Opfer - KrebskanonJ.S. Bach: Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079: Canon 1 a 2 cancrizans
  2. Invention Nr. 14 B-durJ.S. Bach: Invention No. 14 in B-flat major, BWV 785
  3. Ein musicalisches Opfer - PerpetuumkanonJ.S. Bach: Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079: Canon 5 a 2 per tonos
  4. Menuett G-durJ.S. Bach: Menuet in G major, BWV 841, from the Clavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
  5. Ein musicalisches Opfer - BalladeUnidentified source
  6. Präludium Nr. 12 F-moll - Wohltemperiertes Klavier T.2J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II: Prelude No. 12 in F minor, BWV 881
  7. Ein musicalisches Opfer - WalzerUnidentified source
  8. Aria - GoldbergvariationenJ.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria
  9. Quodlibet - GoldbergvariationenJ.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Variation 30, Quodlibet
  10. Solfeggietto C-mollC.P.E. Bach: Solfeggio in C minor, Wq 117 No. 2
  11. Präludium Nr.2 C-moll - Wohltemperiertes Klavier T.1J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I: Prelude No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847
  12. Fuge Nr.2 C-moll - Wohltemperiertes Klavier T.1J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I: Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847