This work is thrillingly executed by this virtuosic group. The Ricercar @ 6 has always brought me to my knees and I watched it yesterday on YT played by Olivier Latry on the pipe organ!! The formidable keyboard skill required to play this - let alone on the organ - is something to behold. Charles Rosen actually claimed that the Ricercar@6 from the
The Musical Offering was the greatest single piece of music ever composed in the history of western music. As an intellectual exercise it's impossible to disagree with this assertion and it is testament to Bach's improvisational aesthetic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfMQ-AYiuJw
I visited Sanssouci in Potsdam in 2011. This was where CPE Bach was working when JS Bach came to visit Frederick the Great. From this encounter
The Musical Offering was born. It's a very moving experience being at that place, so sacred to music-lovers as to be regarded as a 'church'.
Here's a musicologist talking about 'late Bach' in a lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eqCyBaQEMs
Bach's self-designed personal seal:
The Vienna Philharmonic's seal:
