Commissioned by Bachsolisten Seoul <Bach Cantata Series XI>
Premiered on 14th October 2021 at the IBK Chamber Hall, Seoul Arts Center
The baroque ensemble and choir organization 'Bachsolisten Seoul' commissioned a piece with a special request, "The new work should be an hommage to J.S. Bach". I started to work with the idea of 'What would I do if I were there with Frederik II?'. The title came from BWV1079 and the story is J.S. Bach met Frederik II and he couldn't satisfy himself with his fugue improvisation in front of Frederik. So he went back home, altered the Theme properly, and finished the magnificent piece to satisfy himself and Frederik II. There is another composer who worked hard to satisfy his king, Louis XII, and it's Josquin des Prez. Louis XII had a poor voice but loved to sing with his choir. He asked Josquing to compose chansons to sing along with the choir. But the problem is, a king is a king and the king deserves to take part in the Tenor position. But his voice and volume were too poor for sing Tenor. So what Josquin did is, make him sing a pianissimo maintaining note in the Tenor part, and let the choir sings. There are several chansons composed in this way by Josquin, and the piece I used is <Guillaume se va chauffe> which means ironic and funny: Guillaume is French for William. He tries to warm up with some piece of carbon, but it won't light up on fire. To hommage J.S. Bach and to celebrate the 500th anniversary (death) of Josquin des Prez, I connected those two different tunes.