18 May 2025

I had read some good reviews of a play starring Brian Cox, the Dundee born actor. He was playing the composer, choir director and organist, Johann Sebastian Bach. The play was called, ‘The Score’. Because I couldn’t go to London to see the play, I bought the script and read it.

The play was written by Oliver Cotton and takes place during the last year of Bach’s life. He visits  Frederick, King of Prussia. The amateur musician sets Bach a test. The King composes a small sequence of notes and with the court musicians’ help, makes it a complicated theme.

The test is to read the theme and compose a fugue in three parts. Despite the court musicians’ confidence that it is impossible, Bach does it. The King’s desire for a six part fugue is something that would require paper and pen.

The underlying theme is the contrast between the peace-loving Bach and the war-mongering Frederick. Bach challenges him but to no avail. He returns home and despite his failing eyesight composes his famous ‘Musical Offering’ all based on the King’s theme. It includes a six part fugue.

The music is sent to the King. We learn that he never opens it. The music is put on a shelf for Frederick is too busy making war in Poland. Bach’s dedication is an acrostic for the word meaning ‘to search within’. When Frederick asks him what his theme means, Bach makes a tentative suggestion:

‘Something frail …Something small, defenceless, unlovely, unlovable - … emerging from deep within …. Wounded. Alone … something that speaks of struggle, of pain, of grief – and looks for the hopeful resolve  of those emotions …the opposite to whatever it is that drives you constantly onto the battlefield.’