Bach meets Frederick the Great (English & other subtitles)

This clip is from a tv series in 4 parts from 1985 named "Johann Sebastian Bach" (an East German/Hungarian collaboration). The initial music at 0:00 - 0:48 is one of the King's own pieces: Flute Concerto No. 3 in C Major (1st movement, Allegro). The chromatic theme presented by the King at 2:42 - 3:17 formed the basis of Bach's Musical Offering (BWV 1079) in 16 movements. At 4:17 - 5:23 Bach plays the beginning of the movement "Ricercare à 3" from the Musical Offering.

==============================================
I have uploaded this video with English subtitles, as a gesture to all non-German speaking fans of Mr. Bach and/or King Frederick. Spanish, Italian and Korean subtitles was added later. I think they add a lot of value for many viewers. Enjoy !

From a desktop computer, click the first of 5 icons in the lower right corner of the video to turn them on or off. From an Ipad, click the icon in the upper right corner (3 dots), and then click "Captions".

In case none of the above mentioned languages is your preferred language, an option is to turn on auto-translate. Click Settings - Subtitles - Auto-translate, and then select your preferred language. Although not perfect, this could be helpful.
==============================================

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) met the Prussian King Frederick II "the Great" (1712-1786) in May 1747. The meeting at the King's residence in Potsdam came about because Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the fortepiano, which had been invented some years earlier. The King owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann. During his visit, Bach, who was well known for his skill at improvising, received from Frederick a long and complex musical theme on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a six-voice fugue on the same theme. Bach answered that he would need to work out the score and send it to the King afterwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musical_Offering

Bach is played by Ulrich Thein (1930-1995) and Frederick by Hans-Jörn Weber (b. 1941). The clip appears at 8 min and 50 sek in part 4. In the last scene, after the king and his entourage have left, you see the musicians applauding and Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel comes to embrace his father.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089379/ (International Movie Database)
https://tinyurl.com/y34fz953 (German Wikipedia)

The 4 parts forming the tv series (no subtitles):

1. "The Challenge" (Die Herausforderung)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUv_gko6gmU

2. "Are you with me" (Bist Du bei mir)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuUGTpz9Uc

3. "Storms and Years" (Stürme und Jahre)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0mcBnCwSrU

4. "The order of the stars" (Die Ordnung der Sterne)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcznuyO5CCE

This video is the same clip as our video, but without subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMFIHwcxBU

In a comment to the above video, Jay Preis points out that many details in this clip are not historically correct:

"In this video Bach Meets Frederick, the writers got many details of this historic meeting wrong. You might say they "improvised." Bach improvised on the king's many Silbermann fortepianos, not on harpsichord. The writers improvised the notion that the king interrupted Bach before he could explain that he was well acquainted with Silbermann and his fortepianos, having tested them in the 1730s and having advised Silbermann to lighten the action and improve the high register. On the evening when Bach met the king (Sunday, May 7, 1747) at his Potsdam residence, the king played a fugue theme on fortepiano-- not flute--and asked Bach to improvise a fugue on the theme, which Bach did in 3 parts--on fortepiano not harpsichord, without interruption, and to the delight and approval of the king's many noble and distinguished guests. The NEXT evening, AFTER Bach had given an organ recital, the king asked Bach to improvise a 6-part fugue on the same theme. Bach declined, explaining that such a theme would require more preparation. Instead, Bach improvised a 6-part fugue on a theme of his own choosing, not on the king's theme". Also, while Bach is portrayed as a genius, the Prussian king is shown as an unpleasant arrogant boasting aristocrat, not grasping Bach's genius – a historically absolutely untrue depiction of Frederick, who was very much impressed by Bach and praised his unsurpassed abilities in a talk with the Austrian Count Swieten in 1774 – 27 years later and 24 years after Bach's death. The film, nevertheless is still one of, or even the best non-documentary film about Bachs life."

Another performance of the same concerto can be found here:
https://youtu.be/4_dDTTnuq9c
Emmanuel Pahud plays the flute. His playing starting at 3 min and 27 sek corresponds to the beginning of our video.

Видео Bach meets Frederick the Great (English & other subtitles) канала stigekalder