A magnetic resonance apparatus and method acquire magnetic resonance data with a recording technique in which the Cartesian scanning of k-space is carried out differently, by a rotation of gradient directions around the center of k-space, for different recording sections of a respective part of the magnetic resonance data, and this recording technique is combined with an accelerating imaging technique for which reference data completely describing a reference range around the center of k-space are used for each individual slice to be scanned. At the beginning of the recording, a calibration area of k-space, which includes all the reference ranges required in the course of recording, is determined and a calibration data set of k-space is recorded in a calibration measurement with complete, Cartesian scanning of the calibration area. Reference data for each recording section are determined from this calibration data set.