BMC 32  - The Art of The Chaconne     
 
The Chaconne, Chacony or Ciacona represents the epitome of Baroque music and the Baroque musical forms. The 
Baroque  spirit  expressed  in  music  is:  Order,  Pattern,  and  Form.  Here  there  is  to  be  no  disorder,  no  atonal 
meandering, no shapeless movements. In the Baroque musical repertoire we find Fugues, in which a given theme is 
repeated in different clefs, and the stricter Canon, which is a ‘round’, each entry following on or overlapping the 
previous  one.  There  is  also  a  whole  group  of  Variations:  variations  on  a  chorale  melody,  variations  on  a  single, repeating bass-line (Passacaglia), and variations on a popular theme – the Chaconne. In that the Chaconne belongs securely among the most orderly of Baroque forms, yet is based on a recognizable melody, freer than the Passacaglia, much freer than the Fugue or Canon, it may justifiably be said that the Chaconne is the most readily enjoyable form among the typical Baroque musical idioms. 
 
Both the Chaconne and the Passacaglia originated in dances, the Chaconne apparently in Spain where it was also 
considered  to  be  of  native  South  American  origin.  These  were  slow  dances  of  three-beats-in-a-measure, usually based directly upon a ground-bass, or planned in short sections similar to those resulting from a ground bass. The Chaconne theme in Baroque times was frequently derived from a popular tune. A distinguishing characteristic is that those short sections were all of 4 to 8 measures. 
 
All the major Baroque composers themselves made great use of the Chaconne, usually as an elaborate ground-bass 
piece  in  three-in-a-measure.    The  French  composers were particularly fond of using this form as a finale in their 
Operas. 
 
Henry Purcell  (1659-1695) was the finest and most original English composer of his day. From the beginning, as a 
chorister of the Chapel Royal, he showed himself to be a musician of exceptional gifts, with Anthems and Services 
for the Chapel Royal coming down to us from as early as 1679. In addition to his duties at the Chapel Royal, Purcell 
was required on occasion to compose pieces for the Royal Court.  In the Summer of 1680 he provided the Court with some  Italianate  instrumental  music,  including  Overtures,  Sonatas,  Dances,  the  Cibell  and  the  Chacony.  Here  in particular he exercised his ingenuity on the old-fashioned form, and his manuscript of the  Fantasias,  included the Chacony in g minor given here.  
 
This  was  constructed  on  a  simple  bass  pattern above which Purcell writes music of great passion and eloquence. 
Later on in this disc we also have his famous  Chaconne  from the Overture  “The Gordian Knot Untied”  (1691), a work not  only  containing  music  of  the  grandest  vein,  but  with  the  Chaconne  being  one  of  the  high  points  of his instrumental and contrapuntal writing. 
 
Arcangelo Corelli  (1653-1713) was one of the most important Italian composers of Sonatas and Concertos and one 
of the most influential violinists of the Baroque era. He came from a well-to-do provincial family and later enjoyed 
the comfortable patronage in Rome of a succession of distinguished royal and clerical music lovers.  Corelli’s twelfth (and last) Sonata from a collection bearing the Opus No. 5 of 1700, was titled  “La Follia”,  and it earned Corelli world fame  during  his  lifetime.  It  shows  the  great  composer’s  extraordinary  invention,  involving  22  variations  on  a saraband-chaconne theme, later to furnish inspiration for Vivaldi and Bach. 
 
Johann Pachelbel  (1653-1706) was a church organist most of his life. A gifted intellectual, he was awarded at the 
age of 17 a scholarship to the Regensburg Gymnasium Poeticum.  Three years later he accepted the post of Deputy 
Organist  at  the  St.  Stephan’s  Cathedral  in  Vienna. He  later  served  as  Eisenach  Court  Organist  for  a  year,  thus becoming acquainted with the Bach family, before taking up, in 1678, the post as Organist of the Predigerkirche, Erfurt,  where  he  remained  for  12  years.  For  a  brief  period  Pachelbel  took  up  residence  in  Stuttgart  at  the Württemberg Court (in 1690) under the patronage of Duchess Magdalena Sibylla.  But his stay there was cut short by the threat of French invasion in 1692.  After a brief service as Town Organist at Gotha, he finally ended his last eleven years as Organist of the St. Sebalduskirche in Nuremberg.  
 
Jan Anonin Losy, Count of Losinthal  (c.1650-1721) belonged to the aristocratic Czech Lobkovic family, with a 
castle  at  Roudnice.    As  a  nobleman  he  was  obliged  to  carry  out  a  whole  range  of  important  duties,  including managing  his  Estate  and  maintaining  senior  State  Offices  in  Prague.  He  also had time to make extensive travels around Germany, Italy and France.  When he was in residence in Prague, he arranged numerous musical evenings in his home.  All this activity was greatly admired by his contemporaries, such as the Capellmeister G.H. Stölzel  who writes:  “His  Grace  played  the  lute  so  well  that  probably  only  he  who  dedicates  himself  to  it  as  his  profession  could  play better”.   Amongst Losy’s admirers we can even find the leading German “professional” Lutenist of the time and friend of J.S. 
Bach, Silvius Weiss, who came to visit him in Prague. Some two hundred of Losy’s compositions, spread in more 
than fifty manuscripts across the whole of Europe, testify to his leading position in the Lute world of the time. 
 
Tomaso Antonio Vitali  (1663-1745), was the eldest son of the well known composer and string-player Giovanni 
Battista Vitali of Bologna. They both moved to Modena when his father was appointed  Maestro di Capella  to Duke 
Francesco II. Later, in 1692, he published a posthumous collection of his father’s Trio Sonatas and on the following 
year embarked upon the publication of his own works.  
 
Gottlieb Muffat  (1690-1770), Court Organist in Vienna, was a member of a famous family of musicians. His father, 
Georg  Muffat,  was  a  significant  figure  in  early  South  German  Baroque  music.  Gottlieb  became  an  outstanding representative of the last generation of great Baroque composers for the Harpsichord.  His  Ciacona con 38 Variazioni, taken from his  Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (1735) , is one of the finest examples of Gottlieb Muffat’s art of writing variations.  
 
G.F. Handel  (1685-1759). Handel’s Organ Concertos were written primarily as Interludes in his Oratorios, the first 
two having appeared in 1733 at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket.  Two complete sets of these Organ Concertos were 
printed during Handel’s lifetime, and a third set two years after his death, known as the Opus 7  “Third Set”.  The 
Chaconne heard here is the second movement,  Andante larghetto e staccato,  of Concerto No.5.   
 
Diderik  Buxtehude  (1637-1707)  was  born  in  Helsingborg,  Sweden.  In  1660  he  became  Organist  of  St.  Mary’s, Helsing rr, and in 1668 succeeded Franz Tunder as Organist of St. Mary’s (Marienkirche) in the North German town of L hbeck. As Organist at L hbeck he composed prolifically and gave frequent recitals, continuing and expanding the annual  series  of  pre-Christmas  public  concerts  known  as Abendmusiken   which  had  been  inaugurated  by  his predecessor  Franz  Tunder.  Though  strongly  associated  with  Chorale  settings,  Buxtehude  also  composed  a  large number of free-form works, incorporating improvisatory sections of great virtuosity and highly accomplished fugues, as  well  as  ostinato  pieces  such  as  Passacaglias  and  Chaconnes,  such  as  the  one  displayed  here;  these  were subsequently much admired by J.S. Bach, and later, by Brahms. 
 
Johann Sebastian Bach: Chaconne for Solo Violin  
 
Robert Schumann became a great promoter of the music of J.S. Bach, particularly during the last years of his life in 
Düsseldorf (1850-54). He first heard Bach’s now celebrated Solo Violin Chaconne at a Concert in 1840 in Leipzig, 
given  by  Mendelssohn,  who  was  at  that  time  Music  Director  of  the  Leipzig  Gewandhaus.  At  this  Concert, the Gewandhaus  Leader,  Ferdinand  David,  played  the  Violin  Solo  Chaconne,  accompanied  “freely  at  the  piano ”  by Mendelssohn.   Schumann  later  wrote  enthusiastically  about  the  event:  “David  played  a  Ciaconna  by  J.S.  Bach,  a  piece  from  those Sonatas  for  Violin  Solo  about  which  someone  stated,  wrongly  enough:  no  other  voice  could  possibly  be  added  to  them. Mendelssohn Bartholdy refuted this in best style by accompanying them on the piano and so wonderfully that the old eternal Cantor himself seemed to have had a hand in things”.   
 
As an interesting insight into how  J.S. Bach’s Chaconne from his Violin Sonata No 4, BWV 1004, became so well known, it was  largely through  Robert Schumann,  who  became a great promoter of the music of J.S. Bach, particularly during the last years of his life in Düsseldorf (1850-54). He first heard Bach’s now celebrated Solo Violin Chaconne at a Concert in 1840 in Leipzig, given by Mendelssohn, who was at that time Music Director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. At this Concert, the Gewandhaus Leader, Ferdinand David, played the Violin Solo Chaconne, accompanied  “freely at the piano” by Mendelssohn.
  Schumann later wrote enthusiastically about the event:  “David played a Ciaconna by J.S. Bach, a piece from those Sonatas for Violin Solo about which someone stated, wrongly enough: no other voice could possibly be added to them. Mendelssohn Bartholdy refuted this in best style by accompanying them on the piano and so wonderfully that the old eternal Cantor himself seemed to have had a hand in things”.    
Thus it was that the Chaconne became known through Mendelssohn, in much the same way that much of Bach’s music gained popularity especially  his choral works.
  How should this music be performed? The obvious answer is - as Bach would have performed it himself, on the violin, using an arched bow on which the strings could be loosened or tightened to produce single line melody or chords as required. Bach would never have composed a piece unplayable on its specified instrument. Regrettably a suitable violinist thus capable was no longer available to us, the so-called Bach Bow being now a lost art. So we came as close as possible to Bach’s intentions through the use of a guitar which allows for both harmony and single line melody. Gergely Sarkozy gives here a wonderful performance, single line and harmony as the score requires, coupled with his own forceful/tranquil dynamics which bring the whole work brilliantly to life.
 
With our program featuring several leading Baroque composers and wide range of instrumentation, this disc provides an excellent introduction to one of the Baroque period’s most representative and entertaining forms.