"On an abandoned theme" was written in the fall of 2001 at the request of the Rembrandt Chamber Players. The piece received its first performance in February of 2002.

The performers asked me to write a piece for Flute, Oboe, Bassoon and Harpsichord, based on a Baroque theme, preferably one by Johann Sebastian Bach. I chose to immediately search among the latter’s works, especially since lately Bach’s music has become my greatest source of inspiration. After having explored many of Bach’s themes, I found that—as I identified many of the well known themes with their original conception and subsequent composition—I had nothing of value to add to them. To me, Bach’s finished compositions express and exhaust the potential of each theme in such a superb fashion, that re-cycling their thematic material by anyone else but the master inherently leads to weak music. I therefore searched through his lesser known music and found what I was looking for in the theme of the unfinished fugue to the Fantasia in C minor BWV 906. Although the Fantasia is quite famous, few people are familiar with the 47 measures (and one beat) of fugue that follow and which Bach left unfinished. The principal theme goes as follows:

There is no doubt in my mind that the subsequent 45 measures (and more had Bach finished) would have perplexed his contemporaries for its dissonant daredevil boldness. I find it hard to imagine that concern for his audience’s reception would have been the decisive factor in Bach not finishing this particular work. I'll leave it up to musicologists and theorists to decide why Bach stopped in bar 48, all the more since that part played no role in my (shameless theft and) use of the material.

The theme’s chromatic properties, however, did play a large role. The chromatic and modulatory nature of the theme lends itself perfectly for my present style of writing, which is best described as essentially tonal, but with very strong chromatic tendencies. Given the fact that I was writing for a baroque ensemble, I put my variations in the form of a neo baroque suite consisting of 5 movements, including an Ouverture (in the French style), a Rondeau, a Sarabande, two Gavottes en suite and a Capriccio (or musical joke)—my friends quickly nicknamed it “Bach goes Balkan”—which ends the piece.

Bach’s theme forms the basis for each movement, but takes on completely different functions and appearances, thereby obfuscating the variation techniques employed and giving each movement a very different character. Led simply by the desire to write a good piece of music, I also shed my concern for improperly using Bach’s theme. In this fashion a work full of contrast and excitement came to life, where virtuoso passages alternate with calm and subdued textures exemplifying both the qualities of the instruments, the ensemble and its performers.