The Score presents a fly-on-the-wall account of a piece of musical history: the events that led to Johann Sebastian Bach writing his Musical Offering. It starts in 1747 as Prussian troops overrun his home town of Leipzig, creating havoc for its citizens, when he receives a call to attend the court of King Frederick II in Potsdam. Bach is loath to go: he is horrified at the behaviour of Frederick’s army and has a sick child but his wife Anna urges him on his way.
So it is that we witness the meeting between autocrat Frederick the Great and the great composer in a world where the walls seem to have ears and a word out of place could call down retribution, a meeting that risks turning into a confrontation, especially after the King tells Bach to speak freely.
At the heart of the action is a trick to catch Bach out. With the help of three of his court composers, the King devises a theme for Bach to turn into an improvised three-part fugue—a task they will bet is impossible. Bach’s son Carl, already a court composer (but one who complains he is paid much less than the others), has faith in his father and takes on that wager.
A ruler staging a war to regain territories claimed to be historically Prussian and collateral civilian damage has contemporary resonances, but Trevor Nunn’s production is set in its period with Robert Jones’s design making a contrast between the Bachs’ simple home and plain harpsichord with the Potsdam court’s exuberance, opulent costumes and ornamented keyboards with a revolve that feeds the fast flow between scenes.
Oliver Cotton’s text doesn’t dig deeply into the arguments his protagonists present, and he uses Peter de Jersey’s deliciously flamboyant Voltaire largely for comic relief, but nevertheless, there is definite drama in the clash between Prussian power and Bach’s humanity, and Brian Cox as Bach and Stephen Hagan as Frederick give stunning performances.
Cox gives us a man well aware of his own musical eminence but who has deep feeling for others and a strong faith, aware of “a moment of divine inspiration”. He subtly suggests the energetic 62-year-old’s fear of sight loss and is touchingly discomforted at being comically caught by the King in his underwear in a portrayal delivered with power and conviction—and a clarity that will reach the whole house.
Hagan’s atheist Frederick is a man damaged by his father’s brutality: regular beatings as a boy and later, after trying to flee with a friend, being caught and forced to watch that friend’s (some say lover’s) beheading. This King has a cold carapace but gives a suggestion that Bach has got beneath that.
There is a strong cast including Nicole Ansari-Cox as Anna Bach, underused but beautifully paired with her husband (as in their real life), Juliet Garricks as the servant Emilia, bringing warmth to court life, and Jamie Wilkes as Carl Bach.
The Score, which comes to the West End after premièring in Bath two years ago, misses something, but its production and performances make it worth seeing.