Bach - Musicalisches Opfer - 1. Ricercar A 3

Wrong instrument! This is one of the few pieces Bach composed for piano.

But the piano sounded exactly like a harpsichord when it was first invented.

@PimpinBassie2
fortepiano

too many silly trills in my opinion, otherwise, excellent

Wow...

Yes, wcbroccoli, Bach clearly played at a faster tempo than Quantz and Kirnberger's instructions suggest. Several contemporary references describe JSB's tempi as "fast". Clearly, Bach was not concerned about fastest running note groups and their range of tempi!

Terrdemarzielle,
Yes, Sebastian does indeed "own" everyone (love that expression, recently taught to me by my grandson) and I have always thought CPE wrote the theme. Fredric wasn't able to create a theme with boundless possibilities.  I have never read this opinion elsewhere, and am glad to read that others have thought as I.

There are no triplets in the subject of this ricercar; the triplets appear in episodes (e.g., 1:10, 3:50) and accompanying the subject (e.g., 1:24) and in the subject of the d-minor fugue from WTC2.

You must distinguish between expositions of the subject (with or without answer) and episodes between expositions. By definition, the subject does not appear in episodes.

Not sure what you mean by "in his other fugues invariably develops the subject itself." How so?

Through modulatory episodes? That the usual way.

Or by stretto, inversion, diminution, or augmentation? Not all subjects, including the King's theme, lend themselves to such full treatment. He does suggest stretto in some places, by partial statement of the subject. And he uses the subject's descending chromatic scale as a point of imitation in episodes.