82: Chaconnes-- an overview

 As promised, this next dance form is one in which, unlike most other dances, the stress in the bar is not on the first beat (by default the strongest), but, out of 3, on the second. There is one example of this form that is so well known that, when you mention the form, almost anyone immediately associates it with this particular example. I am, of course, referring to the Chaconne (also called a “Ciaconna”—the only difference is French vs. Italian nomenclature), the “type specimen,” if you will, of course being the one in Bach’s D minor violin partita. 

The stress on the second beat is not the only defining characteristic. Another, just as important, is that a chaconne is made up of many harmonic cells strung together, where each cell is a chord progression of constant length. Chaconnes, therefore, are defined just as much, if not more, by their basslines as they are by their melodies. 

Bach’s Chaconne BWV 1004, has 64 of these cells, 4 bars each, for 256 total bars. Our first recording will show you these cells as clearly as I’ve ever seen on the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drBW30z-8g 

Let me explain how to read this:

1. The black line-bars are this software’s representation of the notes; how long a line-bar is, is how long that note is held, and they occur higher or lower as if they were on an invisible staff. (So “dotted quarter, eighth” is two consecutive lines in a 3:1 ratio, and so on)

2. There are two sections on the screen; the explanation in point 1 holds for both the to and the bottom 

3. The top shows you the four-bar variation cells, and each is a different color 

4. The bottom also operates on a when-this-changes-so-does-the-color rule, but what governs the bottom is the key of the current material

5. The bottom also has vertical divisions to show you, within each variation and/or key, when chord changes occur


The second recording I want to share is Itzhak Perlman’s in concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMuoda0gbko&list=RDfMuoda0gbko&start_radio=1


Next, from the Netherlands Baroque Society with very different bows, strings, and tuning, but still on a violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y4lcQ7BTLw&list=RD7y4lcQ7BTLw&start_radio=1 

And these next two are transcriptions, but I think it’s vital to hear them to understand this chaconne in particular, since Bach’s goal in both the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin (and the corresponding Cello Suites) is to turn those traditionally one-line melody instruments into effective mimics of organs and/or whole orchestras, which is what makes those collections so difficult for people who play those instruments. As you listen to these recordings, especially the full orchestra, think back to the pure-violin versions and imagine how difficult it must be to carry all these loads on one instrument and make all the voices sing out as they should: 


First, on an organ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfS14rpl0OI&list=RDSfS14rpl0OI&start_radio=1

And now for full orchestra: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WpzfAd5gXk&list=RD4WpzfAd5gXk&start_radio=1



Of course, there is so, so, so much more to be said about the Bach Chaconne that it will be getting its own article (or perhaps a series) in due time. Stay tuned!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

35: Figured Bass

Image
  There’s a system of notating harmonies that’s rather unique to the Baroque era, but which is so frequently used there, and so important to it, that no discussion of theory would ever be complete if we did not cover it. This is the notation of figured bass: “figured,” in the sense of using figures (numbers) to notate the bass. Figured bass was, in a sense, its own notation completely separate from the five lines and four spaces of the staff, which was nearly exclusively the purview of cellists, bassists, harpsichords, and organists.  Figured bass, fair warning, can be intimidating at first. But, just as with anything else we’ve covered so far, the more you practice reading it, the better you’ll get.  In this system, we use numbers to indicate intervals above the bass. We stack them, and this is how we build chords. If you can’t stack them, nowadays, it’s perfectly fine to use slashes and write the numbers horizontally.  Let’s start with the easiest figured bass nota...
Read more

58: Swell pedals and swell shades

There’s one pedal that we haven’t discussed on the organ because it isn’t one of the “note” pedals—in fact, it’s the only one that doesn’t have a pitch. Instead, the missing pedal is the swell pedal. Look at the body of the organ (the assembly of where all the pipes are, as opposed to the “console”, where the organist sits and plays the instrument—these may or may not be physically close to each other), and you’ll probably see what kind of look like plantation shutters. (If you know where my parish is, then this feature of the organ is very clearly visible on ours. Your local organ might not be so obvious.) These shutters, called “swell shutters/shades,” show or hide the pipes of the organ. Organs have instantaneous dynamic control—the amount of pressure you put on a key dictates how much air flows through the pipes, just like a piano allows you to adjust dynamics on the fly by changing the amount of pressure with which the hammer hits the string(s) given the pressure on the key. Thes...
Read more

54: Trills in the Baroque vs. Classical Periods

Image
Baroque music is known for its incredibly technical and ornamented style. The most common and fundamental of those ornaments is our focus today: the trill. Most simply, a trill is a very fast, repeated alternation of two notes. In the vast majority of cases, those notes are adjacent, but that is not a requirement. Given how fast and common they are, regardless of what you play—whether it’s a string, wind, or keyboard instrument, or your voice—they have a reputation for being quite tiring to play. The period matters when considering a trill. Classical and later composers treat trills, in a sense, in the opposite manner than Baroque composers do. Let me show you two examples: First, the Baroque way of thinking. This is a PAC:   and especially in the Baroque era, when the plucked harpsichord dominated over the hammered piano, it was hard to sustain sounds for long since the sound of the plucking decays quickly. The trill was developed in response, out of a need both to ornam...
Read more