Any contemporary flutist who has grappled with the technical challenges of the trio-sonata might reasonably wonder about the ability of Frederick to master the daunting difficulties involved in performing it. It is certainly true that the demands of the flute part lie far beyond that of most music published for the flute in this period, which was usually restricted to tonalities with few sharps or flats, and particularly avoiding those keys far to the flat side, such as E-flat major, or F minor. On the other hand, Johann Sebastian Bach must certainly have been well aware of the king’s capabilities as a flutist, which were not inconsiderable (it’s not clear whether Bach heard the king’s customary concerto performances while he was in Potsdam), and to present the monarch with an unplayable gift would have been quite a faux pas. Indeed it seems clear that far from being daunted by “extreme” keys, Frederick may have seen them as a challenge (and perhaps as a confirmation of his skills). Telemann produced a set of duets for flutes (TWV 40: 130-135) all of which are in difficult keys (B-flat, C minor, E-flat, F minor and E major). Unlike the other three sets he wrote, this set was never published, and excerpts from it appear in the manuscript recording Quantz’s flute lessons with Frederick. In annotating the Lyrichord recording of these works, I have suggested that Telemann may have intended these especially for Quantz and his pupil. (For a fuller discussion of this topic, see the Rampe article cited above, to which I am indebted here).

In contrast to the majority of almost all of Bach’s other works, the primary source for the Musical Offering is the first printed edition of the work (a facsimile edition is available from Peters, EP 9313). This fact has produced a certain amount of confusion about the ordering of the various parts of the work, which can be divided into three distinct genres: first, the two ricercars in three and six parts; next the canons; and finally the trio sonata. The three-part ricercar is printed on two staves, as would be typical for keyboard music; at the bottom is the Canon Perpetuus super Thema Regium. The six-part ricercar is printed on six staves, but this is for the ease of following the individual parts; likewise the remaining space is occupied by the two canons a 2 and a 4, Quaerendo invenietis (“Seek and you shall find”). Five canons and the fuga canonica are printed on a separate sheet, headed “Canones diversi”. Finally there is a set of parts for the trio sonata, which includes a canon for the same forces at the end. Christoph Wolff, in examining the printed sources (“New Research on Bach’s Musical Offering”, Musical Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 3, 1971, p. 379-408), rejects any overarching ordering to the components, though this has been a quest of musicologists for much of this century. Ursula Kirkendale (“The source for Bach’s Musical Offering: the Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 33, no. 1, 1980, p. 88-141) makes a case for an occult ordering based on the Institutio Oratoria of the rhetorician Quintilian, where she identifies each individual piece with a part of the classical oration; other scholars would disagree. This ordering is identical with that of the old collected works edition, and the Schmieder catalog.