İlhan Mimaroğlu - The offering (1979)

İlhan Mimaroğlu - The offering (1979), for tape with pre-recorded voice. Text by Johann Sebastian Bach. French text from the Boosey & Hawkes edition of J. S. Bach, Musical Offering. Hans Gal, Editor. Used by permission. JEAN DUPUY, speaker.

The text (in a French translation) is J.S. Bach's dedication of his Musical Offering to Frederick the Great of Prussia. The musical material is based on fragments from Bach's music, including the ones taken from Musical Offering. The diversity of musical vocabularies resulting from the transformation of the material and the complex textures created by superimpositions aim at a stylistic significance which both comprises and exceeds a specific age (J.S. Bach's). The intent is to establish an expressionistic, nightmarish textural quality by which to comment upon the debased condition of those who create music-the beggarly humility of composers at the feet of the holders of money and power, a predicament as timely today as it has always been.

Here is an English translation of Bach's text:

Sire,

With the profoundest feeling of submission, I take the liberty of presenting you a Musical Offering the noblest part of which is by the hand of your Majesty. It is with a respectful pleasure that I still remember your Majesty's gracious condescension when I visited Potsdam, some time ago, in playing on the clavier the theme for a fugue which you commanded me to develop in your august presence, it was my humblest duty to obey your Majesty's command. But I immediately became aware of the fact that, lacking the necessary preparation, it was not possible for me to treat such an excellent theme in a deserving fashion. Therefore I decided to give this truly royal theme a perfect treatment, and then to make it known to the whole world. My project is now completed to the extent of my ability and I have no other intention than the laudable desire to augment, however small that may be, the glory of a monarch whose power and greatness are admired by all in the arts of war and peace, particularly in music. I am bold enough to add this humble request-that your Majesty will condescend to accept this modest work and continue to favor

Your majesty's most obediant and humble servant, THE AUTHOR

The text is read in a manner representing the process of writing a letter; certain words and phrases are emphasized by repetition- statements that the writer believes would flatter the reader. It is rendered in French rather than in English or Bach's German. Initially I conceived it as a trilingual setting. The first speaker I could get was Jean Dupuy who gave me an excellent reading in French. As I started to develop the piece around his reading I became more and more convinced that the composition would be complete without the German and the English texts and that was how the piece took its course.