The genesis of this collection of canons, fugues and a sonata for flute and violin dedicated to Frederick the Great is one of the extraordinary events in Bach’s life as narrated by his first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel. In 1747 Bach visited his son Carl Philipp Emanuel in Potsdam, where he was employed as the harpsichordist at the court of Frederick II, himself a flautist, composer and philosopher. Bach asked the king for a theme on which to improvise a fugue. Back in Leipzig, this thema regium was developed into The Musical Offering, one of the high points in Bach’s canon and a masterpiece of contrapuntal music. Accademia Bizantina now dives into its complex instrumental structure, following Bach’s own suggestion in the Canon perpetuus: “Quaerendo invenietis”, seek and ye shall find.

The Programme

For almost fifteen hundred years, Empress Theodora has stared sternly at the faithful and visitors of the Basilica of San Vitale, her purple chlamys embroidered with the Magi, a jewelled chalice in her hands. Now, at last, the Basilissa that Frank Thiess described as “revered as a saint and cursed as demon”, leaves her wall of mosaics to take shape, body and life as the protagonist of Mauro Montalbetti’s Teodora. Una scalata al cielo in cinque movimenti. This new chamber opera, based on a libretto by Barbara Roganti, will be premièred right under the golden vaults of the basilica and the glittering mosaic of the Empress and her retinue. Not a mere biography—the authors explain—but rather a musical itinerary through the labyrinth of her existence.

The Programme
Programme