Bach, J S: Musical Offering, BWV1079 (Musikalisches Opfer)

Always up for a challenge, Bach. just about as much a mathematical genius as a musical one, served up A Musical Offering - one of the pinnacles of the Baroque repertoire and offering track after track of delectable Baroque chamber music. Coupled with it are two of his most popular Flute Sonatas, all performed with incredible verve and zest by Musica Antiqua Koln.

Maya Homburger and Malcolm Proud’s ensemble Camerata Kilkenny perform one of J S Bach’s most enduring works, The Musical Offering, BWV 1079, with the baroque flautist Wilbert Hazelzet. It’s their second recording for Maya Recordings following a highly praised CD of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas three years ago.

Founded by the Irish international harpsichordist and organist Malcolm Proud and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger, Camerata Kilkenny is a period instrument group specialising in the performance of Baroque music. Many of its programmes combine 17th and 18th century music with the works of contemporary composers. It consists of artists from Ireland with guest artists from further afield who are renowned internationally for their performances and recordings.

Camerata Kilkenny gave its debut recital at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in August 1999, since when it has performed in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Estonia. In Ireland the group has appeared at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the Sligo Festival of Baroque Music, the Festival of Great Irish Houses, the Galway Early Music Festival, the East Cork Early Music Festival 'Music in the Mosaics' in Timoleague and the Kilkenny Arts Festival.

In April 2010 Camerata Kilkenny and Wilbert Hazelzet gave a concert in St Peter’s Church in Leut-Maasmechelen, Belgium following which they recorded Bach’s Musical Offering. The Irish Times said: “Performances of this extra-special work can be sometimes illuminated, sometimes stultified, by an atmosphere of overpowering reverence. Not so this one, in which the music’s artifices were subsumed in a world of rhetoric, decoration and dance.”

Their first CD of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas with Maya Homburger was on the “Bestenliste” of the prestigious German music industry ‘Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’ award in 2007.