In a method to acquire a magnetic resonance image data set of a target volume with a magnetic resonance device, wherein the target volume is composed of a number of sub-volumes defined in a two-dimensional plane orthogonal to the readout direction, for each sub-volume, in order to acquire a partial data set of a sub-volume, a targeted excitation of the sub-volume and a data acquisition from that sub-volume to measure the partial data set take place by radiation of a first radio-frequency pulse acting in a first direction of the plane and radiation of a second radio-frequency pulse acting in a second direction that is orthogonal to the first direction. The partial data sets are combined into the magnetic resonance data set.