Andante from the Trio Sonata of The Musical Offering (1747)

The story of how Bach came to write The Musical Offering – in astonishingly comprehensive response to a challenge from Frederick the Great when he was a guest of the Prussian king at Potsdam in 1747 – is well known. So is the fact that Frederick was an accomplished musician, a capable flautist and no mean composer. Whether he was composer enough to invent the intriguing “royal” theme on which The Musical Offering is based – it takes expert contrapuntal knowledge to devise a theme so difficult as a basis for a fugue    – we cannot be sure: perhaps Bach himself elaborated it from Frederick’s initial idea. However that may be, the theme furnished the inspiration, in one way or another, for two large-scale fugues, ten canons and, most beautiful of all, a four-movement trio sonata. Scored for flute, violin and continuo, the sonata includes two slow movements, the second of which is an Andante based throughout on its opening theme but not excluding hidden allusions to the royal theme.