JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor
Bella Hristova, violin

Performed on Monday, June 17, 2013
Gould Rehearsal Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia

Bach’s Chaconne is among the first great virtuosic works for solo violin. Though it is often performed as a stand-alone piece, it was conceived as the last movement of his second violin partita. Bach’s solo violin music is at the core of every violinist’s repertoire, and the Chaconne is the crowning achievement among these works.

Before proceeding, a bit of Baroque-era vocabulary: A “Chaconne” is a slow, stately dance in triple meter (counted in three, like a waltz), featuring a repeating bass line over which a composer writes variations. That bass line loops constantly, never stopping, as varying musical events occur above it. The “Partita,” a favored large-scale form at the time, was a collection of dance movements gathered together into an instrumental suite.

Bach’s second partita offers four dance movements of a usual length and character, but the fifth and final movement—the Chaconne—surpasses them all. Longer than all of the others combined, it encompasses some of the most earnest and intense music ever written, as the composer repeats the bass line 64 times. Midway through, Bach turns from the darker and serious minor mode of the opening to a hopeful major mode, giving the violinist the opportunity to sing out. But the music’s original character returns, bringing us full circle toward its somber, reflective conclusion.

Some 150 years later, Johannes Brahms summed up the Chaconne in a concise and elegant way: “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings.”

(For more on the Chaconne with Curtis violin faculty Arnold Steinhardt: [ Ссылка ])

—David Serkin Ludwig

Learn more about this work: [ Ссылка ]

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