silbiger bach & the chaconne

Bach and the ChaconneAuthor(s): Alexander SilbigerReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer, 1999), pp. 358-385Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/764098 .Accessed: 26/10/2012 12:46

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358

Bach and the Chaconne*

ALEXANDER SILBIGER

In the evolution of musical genres, as in the evolution of biological species, changes are sometimes brought about by a sudden mutation, which turns out to have survival value and thus gives rise to a new type or subgenre. In a musical genre, such a mutation may be the consequence of a composer's desire to endow a composition with special meaning by introducing features that will distinguish it from prior specimens-that in fact may even go counter to the traditional concept of the genre. An obvious example would be the introduction of voices in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. We can call such a work marked, as opposed to the unmarked norm.' Most of these mutations have little effect beyond the reception of the work itself; however, when the message is especially powerful, the mutated features may be emulated in other works and eventually become dominant characteris- tics of the genre or give rise to a new genre tradition in which they no

longer function as markings but have become the norm.2 Bach's chaconne for unaccompanied violin and his passacaglia for

organ provide examples of mutations that had particularly strong survival value; they became the prototypes of the chaconne and passacaglia

Volume XVII ?

Number 3 "

Summer 1999 The Journal of Musicology ? 1999 by the Regents of the University of California

* This paper was written in honor of my colleague Peter Williams on the occasion of his retirement; a preliminary version was read at a symposium at Duke University in March 1998 marking this occasion, and at the Biennial Meeting of the American Bach Society, "J. S. Bach and the Musical Instruments of His Time," at Yale University in April 1998. I wish to express my gratitude to Peter Williams as well as to Laurence Dreyfus, Robert Marshall, Joshua Rifkin, and Christoph Wolff for their helpful comments and suggestions.

I Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpre- tation (Bloomington, 1994), 34-36.

2 This may also happen when its composer is a figure of exceptional authority; sometimes both the force of a work and the authority of its creator play a part. The main point is that changes in genre conceptions do not just happen, but are the consequence of individual creative acts.

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from the nineteenth century to the present day. However, we cannot blame those two works for having driven out all other types. Bach's formative years coincided with the end of the chaconne and passacaglia's age of glory; by the time he reached maturity they were moribund, ex-

cept in the French theaters.3 His contribution can be seen more as a rescue operation, such as he performed on a much larger scale for the

fugue. But precisely because these two works established the norms for

nineteenth-century and twentieth-century chaconnes and passacaglias, it has become difficult to grasp the nature and intent of Bach's original marking process: what had these genres represented to him and his

contemporaries, and how did he mark or change them? In this paper I

hope to take some initial steps toward answering these questions, particularly with respect to the chaconne for unaccompanied violin.4

Bach turned to the ancient chaconne and passacaglia genres for

only a few works; see Table i. Three compositions are designated as ciaccona (with the Italian spelling) or passacaglia in the sources, Ai

through 3, and a few additional works are sometimes associated with those genres, B1 through 5. The last three works on that list, B3-5, to-

day are usually regarded as passacaglias because they are laments on ostinato basses, but it is not clear whether the modern identification of

3 Since the nineteenth-century come-back of the chaconne and the passacaglia was almost entirely due to the revival of the two Bach works, it is hardly surprising that the new chaconnes and passacaglias had little to do with any other pre-18oo conceptions of those genres. Bach's violin chaconne was first published in 1802 by Simrock in Bonn, the passacaglia in 1834 by Dunst in Frankfurt; when in 1840 Mendelssohn performed the chaconne with Ferdinand David in the Leipzig Gewandhaus (playing his own added piano accompaniment) and later that same year performed the passacaglia in the Thomaskirche, both followed by enthusiastic reviews by Robert Schumann, these works had clearly established their prominent places in the musical canon. On Mendelssohn's chaconne performance, see John M. Cooper, "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Ferdinand David und Johann Sebastian Bach: Mendelssohns Bach Auffassung im Spiegel der Wiederentdeckung der 'Chaconne,' " Mendelssohn Studien lo, eds. Rudolf Elwers and Hans-Giinther Klein (Berlin, 1997), 157-79; on his Passacaglia performance, see Matthias Pape, Mendelssohns Leipziger Orgelkonzert 184o: ein Beitrag zur Bach-Pflege im 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1988), 23-24.

4 I should acknowledge here a number of recent studies of these two works that have largely or entirely ignored their generic contexts, but that nevertheless may have much of interest to offer on other aspects of these works: Martha Curti, '"J. S. Bach's Cha- conne in D Minor: A Study in Coherence and Contrast," Music Review XXXVII (1976), 249-65; Heinrich Poos, 'J. S. Bach's Chaconne ffir Violine Solo aus der Partite in d-moll, BWV 1004: ein hermeneutischer Versuch," Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts fiir Musikfor- schung Preussischer Kulturbesitz 1993, 151-203; Christoph Wolff, "The Architecture of the Passacaglia," in Bach, Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 306-16; and Yoshitake Kobayashi, "The Variation Principle in J. S. Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor BWV 583," Bach Studies 2, ed. Daniel Melamed (Cambridge, 1995), 62-69. A useful discussion of the place of Bach's organ passacaglia within the traditions of the late seventeenth- century and early eighteenth-century keyboard chaconne/passacaglia is, however, provided by Peter Williams, as part of the entry on this work in his The Organ Music ofJ. S. Bach (Cambridge, 1980) I, 253-66.

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TABLE 1

Chaconnes and Passacaglias in the Works ofJ. S. Bach

A. Works designated as ciaccona or passacaglia

1. BWV 15o (c. 1706-08). Ciaccona: "Meinen Tage in den Leiden." SATB, instr. ensemble. Final chorus in Cantata 150 (Nach dir Herr verlanget mich). 22 couplets of 4 x 3/', all with ostinato bass (ascending penta- chord) in b-D-F#-A-E-b.

2. BWV 582 (1708-12, or later). Passacaglia. Keyboard with pedal. 21 couplets of 8 x 3/4 followed by a fugue on the first half of the passacaglia subject, all in c. Most couplets, including the first 6, have an unchanged ostinato bass, but 8 introduce modifications (including migration of the ostinato to other voices).

3. BWV 1004 (1720). Ciaccona. Unaccompanied violin. Final movement in Partita no. 2 for unaccompanied violin. 64 couplets of 4 X 3/4; no osti-

nato; d-D-d.

B. Works that are not designated as chaconne or passacaglia in the sources, but that have been connected with those genres 1. BWV 78 (1724). '"Jesu, der du meine Seele." SATB, instr. ensemble.

Opening chorus in Cantata BWV 78 (Jesu, der du meine Seele). Irregular form with refrain; g, with both refrains and episodes in related keys; many couplets present ostinato (descending tetrachord) in bass or other

voices; chorale cantus firmus.

2. BWV 140 (1731). "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme." SATB, instr. ensemble. Opening chorus in Cantata 140 ( Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme). Cha- conne topos; irregular form with modified refrain; E flat, with both refrains and episodes in related keys; chorale cantus firmus.

3. BWV 12 (1714). "Weinen, klagen, sorgen, zagen." SATB, instr. ensemble.

Opening chorus in Cantata 12 (Weinen, klagen, sorgen, zagen). 12 couplets of 4 x 3/2 all with ostinato bass in f

4. BWV 232 (c. 1747-49). "Crucifixus." SATB, instr. ensemble. Segment in the Symbolum Nicenum (Credo) of the Mass in B minor adapted from BWV 12 (no. 3 above). 13 couplets of 4 x 3/2 all with ostinato bass in e (last unit cadences in G).

5. BWV 992 (c. 1705 or earlier). "Lamento der Freunde, Adagississimo" keyboard. Segment in Capriccio sopra il lontananza de il Frato dilettissimo. 12

couplets of 4 x 3/4, all in f some with ostinato bass, some with altered bass.

SILBIGER

the ostinato lament with the passacaglia, or for that matter, of the ostinato variation in general with the chaconne and the passacaglia, ex- isted in the eighteenth century. Many chaconnes and passacaglias of the period were not based on ostinato basses, and the three laments do not exhibit other markings common with those two genres.5 About the

appropriateness of the inclusion of BWV 78 Jesu, der du meine Seele (B1) there can be no doubt, since, as we shall see shortly, it displays all the markings of a particular strain of the chaconne.

The opening of Cantata BWV 140, Wachet auf (B2) suggests the chaconne topos, and in fact, closely resembles the beginning of a keyboard chaconne in J. C. F. Fischer's Musikalischer Parnassus (Augsburg, 1738); see Ex. 1.6 Despite the recurring refrain, there are not enough generic markings during the course of the piece to suggest that the entire cantata movement was conceived as a chaconne.7 One can find analogous instances among Bach's works of pieces that commence with an ostinato lament topos, that is, create the expectation of such an ostinato at the beginning, which then is not fulfilled; see for example, Ver- sus 2 and Versus 4 of Cantata BWV 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden and the aria "Ach, mein Sinn" in the Johannes-Passion.

Turning now to the designated works, A 1-3: is there a difference between pieces called chaconne and those called passacaglia? I addressed this issue in general in a recent article,8 in which I concluded that the difference tends to be contextual and relative. When a chaconne and a passacaglia appear together in the same context-by the

: I hope to explore the relationship of the chaconne and the passacaglia to the ostinato lament more fully elsewhere.

6 The dotted rhythms have led Susan McClary to interpret the opening of Wachet aufas a French overture topos, referring to the Sun King; see her "The Blasphemy of Talk- ing Politics During Bach Year" in Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, ed. Richard Leppert and Susan McClary (Cambridge, 1987). However, the movement lacks other markers pointing to the French overture genre; furthermore, the chaconne topos would fit her interpretation of this movement just as well, especially if one accepts Geoffrey Burgess's theory on the meaning of the chaconne in Lully's operas-see n. 26 below.

7 The resemblance with the Fischer chaconne also suggests this may be another instance, similar to several already reported in the literature, in which Bach elaborated musical ideas of Fischer's (see Reinhard Oppel, "UberJoh. Kasp. Ferd. Fischers Einflusz auf Joh. Seb. Bach," Bach Jahrbuch VII (1910), 63-69 and Willi Apel, The History of Keyboard Music to 1700oo, tr. Hans Tischler [Bloomington, 1972], 591). BWV 140 is presumed to date from 1731; however, the 1738 publication date of Fischer's Parnassus generally cited in the literature is not secure; it does not appear in the original print but was given in Gerber's Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkiinstler (Leipzig, 1812) II, 135, as cited in Rudolf Walter, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer: Hofkapellmeister der Markgrafen von Baden, Quellen und Studien zur Musikgeschichte von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart, XVIII (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 259, n.

137. 1 "Passacaglia and Ciaconna: Genre Pairing and Ambiguity from Frescobaldi to Couperin," Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music II (1996) <http://www.sscm.harvard.edu/ jscm/v2no1.html>

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EXAMPLE la. Bach, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," BWV 140, mm. 1-5 strings and oboes Vln

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EXAMPLE lb. J. C. F. Fischer, Chaconne from Euterpe, MusikalischerParnassus (Augsburg, [1738?]), mm. 1-5

Keyboard

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same composer, in the same collection or as part of the same larger work-they are clearly marked as different by a set of opposing charac- teristics. These differentiating markings don't necessarily remain the same from one composer to the next, although they do show some consistency that cuts across both chronology and geography. When, however, a chaconne or a passacaglia is not the member of a pair, the choice of title often does not correlate with any differentiating charac- teristics and seems to have been made without a particular distinction in mind.

None of the Bach examples form members of pairs, and I propose that the differences between the violin chaconne and the organ passacaglia, striking as these may be, have nothing to do with their genre titles. Rather, these differences relate to the very different traditions or sub-genres to which these two works belong, each arising from a late seventeenth-century mutation of the original species-the ancestral genres created in Italy earlier in the century by the transformation of improvisational guitar and dance-song traditions ultimately rooted in Spain and the colonies. For Bach's violin chaconne the basic template was provided by chaconne and passacaglia dance scenes in Lully's tragedies lyriques,9 whereas the organ passacaglia drew upon a German tradition of ground-bass variations for pedal organ, with Buxtehude most likely providing the specific models.1o

Lully's chaconnes" occupied a central place in most of his tragidies lyriques, in the form of extended choreographic numbers that celebrated a hero's triumph or apotheosis.12 The bass lines of these chaconnes, like those of their Italian ancestors, were largely limited to variants of

9 Its site in a dance suite, of course, was modeled on French instrumental dance sets (in turn perhaps inspired by stage divertissements and suites of instrumental excerpts from theatrical works) and their German derivatives.

10 The final chorus of BWV 150 (Ai) is the only example in Table 1 of a third tradition, that of chaconne arias and choruses in seventeenth-century German sacred concertato works. These movements-often marked ciaccona but never, to my knowledge, passacaglia-are based on strict ostinato basses, usually with segments in related keys and with brilliant figurations in the accompanying strings; the tradition goes back at least to Schiltz's Es steh Gott auf (1647, SWV 356), with contributions by Weckmann (see Ex. io), Buxtehude, and Bach's uncle Johann Christoph (see n. 2o, below). Incidentally, at one time some scholars considered Bach's authorship of BWV 150, which survives only in a posthumous copy, questionable; it now is generally accepted as an authentic, although very early work-possibly the earliest of the cantatas; see Andreas G16ckner, "Zur Echtheit und Datierung der Kantata BWV 150 'Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich'," Bach-Jahrbuch (1988), 195-2o3.

" I will use "chaconne" here to denote both genres except when the difference matters.

1 They did not generally serve as laments for a hero's death, although a choral (and probably danced) lament in Act 3 of Alceste, "Que nos pleurs, que nos cris," (following the self-sacrifice of the heroine), while not called passacaille, appears to refer to a passacaglia topos during its instrumental introduction.

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EXAMPLE 2. Chaconne and passacaglia basses (first couplets). NB: bass

figures are editorial except for 2d, 2e, and 2k

(a) Frescobaldi, Partite sopra Ciaccona, II secondo libro di toccate (Rome, 1627), mm. 1-4; (b) Monteverdi, Ciacona: "Zefiro torna," Scherzi musicali (Venice, 1632), mm. 1-3; (c) Kerll, Ciaccona variata, Modulatio organica (Munich, 1686), mm. 1-3; (d) Poglietti, Ciaccona, Compendium (ms., 1676); (e) Corelli, Ciacona, Sonate de camera, Op. 2, No. 12 (Rome, 1685), mm. 1-5; (f) Marais, Chaconne, Pieces a' une et a deux violes (Paris, 1686), mm. 1-5; (g) F. Couperin, Chaconne from L'imperiale, Les Nations (Paris, 1726), mm. 1-4; (h) Bach, Ciaccona from Partita No. 2, (ms., 1720), mm. 1-4; (i) Frescobaldi, Partite sopra passacagli, II secondo libro di toccate (Rome, 1627), mm. 1-4; (j) Kerll, Passacaglia, Modulatio organica (Munich, 1686), mm. 1-2; (k) Poglietti, Passacaglia, Compendium (ms., 1676); (1) Biber, Passacaglia, "Rosary Sonatas" (ms., c. 1676), mm. 1-2

6 S- 4 3 6 5 4 3

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a small number of stereotypical patterns, most commonly the chaconne formula (best-known today from Monteverdi's "Zefiro torna," Ex. 2b) and the descending tetrachord in both its diatonic and chromatic ver- sions. In Italy the chaconne formula, whose ancestry appears to go back to the original Spanish chacona melodies, tended to be associated especially with the chaconne, and the descending tetrachord with the passacaglia, especially when the two were paired. Example 2 shows the

opening bass patterns of several chaconnes and passacaglias. Among them are three pairs that exhibit the noted distinction: Examples 2a and 2i by Frescobaldi, probably the very first pair of these genres; Ex-

amples 2d and 2k from Poglietti's Compendium, 3 the only known exam-

ple of the bass formulas being juxtaposed in a treatise; and 2c and 2j by Kerll, possibly the ancestors of the German sub-genre.14 The distinction between the bass formulas was however not always maintained in Italy and even less so elsewhere; for Lully, for example, major/minor mode and perhaps also tempo opposition seemed to have been more important. Like many of his Italian predecessors, Lully did not use these common patterns as fixed ostinatos throughout the dance, but often varied or interchanged them from one couplet, or pair of couplets, to the next. (I am using "couplet" here rather than "variation" precisely because the successive units often are not variations in any ordinary sense).

Unlike the traditional generic bass patterns used by Lully, the Ger- man organists gave their bass formulas distinctive shapes that very much formed part of the inventio of the particular composition, and which provided the basis for the variation structure governing the entire piece. During the earlier part of the work it was played prominently on the pedals, and only after it had been sufficiently imprinted onto the listener's memory would it be varied, moved to a higher voice, merely hinted at, or abandoned altogether-often to return in full force toward the closing of the piece. Mutations often also involve loss of features that may have been quite basic to the nature of the ancestral

species; if with the French operatic progeny the loss had been the spirit of improvisation, with the German organ variety it probably was the

spirit of the dance, which had pervaded all Spanish and Italian chaconnes.

Both the Lullyan and the Buxtehude types of chaconne are represented in two manuscript anthologies compiled during Bach's earlier years by his brotherJohann Christoph, and with which he is assumed to

': Alessandro Poglietti, "Compendium oder kurtzer Begriff, und Einffihrung zur Musica" (Vienna, 1676), Kremsmunster (Austria), Ms. L. 146.

14 The basses in Ex. 2, although placed in more or less chronological order, are not intended to illustrate successive evolutionary stages.

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have been well familiar: the so-called M6ller Manuscript,'5 dated from ca. 1703 to 1707 and the Andreas Bach Book,'6 dated from ca. 1708 to ca. 1713 or possibly a few years later;17 see Table 2. This repertory includes an anonymous keyboard adaptation of the chaconne from

Lully's Phaeton (Table 2, No. 4), which, although among his shorter operatic chaconnes, could serve as an excellent pedagogical model (Ex. 3);18 note that the first two couplets use a version of the chaconne bass, the second pair a descending tetrachord, and the third pair introduces a bit of chromaticism. The German pedal chaconne is represented in these manuscripts by no less than four examples by Buxtehude-in- deed, his entire surviving output of the genre-as well as one by Pachel- bel, and Bach's own organ passacaglia. Three French keyboard chaconnes, by Lebiegue and Marchand, are not of the Lullyan type but are chaconnes en rondeau, another sub-genre, common in French instrumental music. On the other hand, three chaconnes for keyboard without

pedal by German composers are included-two by B6hm'9 and one by Fischer-which have neither fixed ground-bass formulas nor recurring refrains, and which in fact conform to the Lully model.2o

That Bach was familiar with Lully's operatic chaconnes, not just through keyboard arrangements but also in their original scoring, is

apparent from the opening chorus of Cantata BWV 78, which is

I5 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mus. Ms. 40644, referred to as MM from here on.

16 Leipzig, Musikbibliothek, III.8.4, referred to as ABB from here on. '7 On the dating of these manuscripts, as well as for a complete inventory, see the

Introduction to Robert Hill, ed., Keyboard Music from the Andreas Bach Book and the M6ller Manuscript, Harvard Publications in Music 16 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), xxii-xxiii.

18 This arrangement is not related to the one in Jean Henri D'Anglebert's Pikces de clavecin (Paris, 1689).

19 Peter Williams has suggested that one of the B6hm chaconnes (Table 2, No. 5), was originally a chaconne en rondeau, but that German copyists failed to understand the original notation, in which the refrain was stated only at the beginning; see his "A Cha- conne by Georg B6hm: A Note on German Composers and French Styles," Early Music XVII (1989), 43-54. There is however no need to have recourse to this ingenious theory, since the form of B6hm's chaconne, although following neither an ostinato nor a rondeau scheme, was far from anomalous.

20 Undoubtedly Bach had access to other chaconnes during his formative years; my description of those in ABB and MM is merely provided as a probably significant sample of those that passed under his eyes and hands. An interesting example, which formed part of the Altbachisches Archiv (a collection of works by members of the Bach family started by Bach's father) and thus would have been in his possession, is the aria "Mein Freund ist mein und ich bin dein" in the wedding cantata "Meine Freundin, du bist sch6n" by his uncle Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703) (mod. ed. in Altbachisches Archiv, Das Erbe Deutscher Musik, 1. Reihe, vol. 2, ed. Max Schneider [Leipzig, 1935], 91-135). Marked "Ciacona," it is based on a strict ostinato bass (a variant of the "Zefiro" formula) in G minor, with segments in D minor and C minor, and is scored for soprano, 5-part string ensemble and continuo; it is noteworthy for its length (66 statements of the ostinato!) and, even more, for the virtuoso divisions in the first violin part.

SILBIGER

TABLE 2

Works Designated as Chaconne or Passacaglia in the Maller Manu- script (MM) and the Andreas Bach Book (ABB)

1. Nicolas Lebegue, Chaconne grave, Pieces de clavessin (1677); rondeau; refrain in D, 3 couplets in A and G. (MM)

2. Lebegue, Chaconne, Pieces de clavessin (1677); rondeau; refrain in C; 3 couplets in G. (MM)

3. Louis Marchand, Chaconne, Pieces de Clavecin (1702); rondeau; refrain in

d, 4 couplets in F, a, g and d. (ABB)

4. Jean-Baptiste Lully, Chaconne from Phaeton (1683), anonymous keyboard arrangement; 37 couplets in G; no strict ostinato bass, although most bass

patterns are variants of generic tetrachord or chaconne formulas. (MM)

5. Georg B6hm, Ciaccona; 24 couplets in f; no ostinato bass, no refrain.

(MM)

6. Georg B6hm, Chacone; 29 couplets in D; no ostinato bass, no refrain.

(ABB)

7. Johann Caspar Friedrich Fischer, Chaconne, Musicalisches Blumenbiischlein

(1696); 30 couplets in G-g-G; descending tetrachord bass in most cou-

plets, but treated freely, no refrain. (ABB)

8. Johann Pachelbel, Ciacona; 35 couplets (including DC of first unit); ostinato bass, d. (ABB)

9. Dieterich Buxtehude, Ciaccone; 38 couplets in c; first seven couplets on ostinato bass; remainder with varied bass and a few brief free modulatory episodes. (ABB)

10. Buxtehude, Ciacona; 30 couplets in e; first 11 couplets on ostinato bass;

remaining couplets on varied bass, but outlining descending tetrachord.

(ABB)

11. Buxtehude, Ciacona, Presto; concluding section of Praeludium in C Peda-

liter; ostinato bass in C; 8 couplets of 3 X 3/2. (ABB)

12. Buxtehude, Passacalia; 29 units of 4 X 3/2; ostinato bass in d, Ej a, d.

(ABB)

13. J. S. Bach, Passacalia; see Table 1, no. 2. (ABB)

14. Johann Christoph Pez, Ciaconne (fragment); string ensemble (open score); 9 couplets of 3 x 3/4 in g: no ostinato but generic bass patterns. (MM)

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EXAMPLE 3. Lully, Chaconne from Phaeton (1683), keyboard setting, Mo1ller MS, mm. 1-25

1. I

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13.

1. 1 A-II I

14.

16

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I 15.

21

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permeated with devices drawn from the French models, such as: the alternation of tutti segments with lightly scored, all treble-register "trio" sections; the alternation of instrumental with vocal segments; the pro- gression from quarter-note motion to smooth eight-note figurations to more lively dactylic patterns of sixteenth and eighth notes or continu- ous sixteenth notes; and characteristic melodic figures. The most strik-

ing among the latter is the initial gesture commencing on the second beat, proceeding toward a higher pitch followed by relaxing back down

by a lesser descent, suggesting the gathering of momentum to put into motion the long train of couplets; see Examples 4a-f. Bach's immediate model may well have been the famous Passacaille from Lully's Armide (Ex. 4c), 1 which, by the way, also may have inspired a notable English contribution to the genre, the Passacaglia "How happy the lover" in Purcell's King Arthur (Ex. 4d).22 Incidentally, both are pieces celebrat-

ing "happy lovers," without any hint of mourning.23 I must hasten to add that the departures form the Lullyan mold

are at least as central to the message of Bach's choral chaconne in Can- tata BWV 78. The stereotypical bass pattern of the opening is not discarded after a few couplets, but becomes a main component of the inventio of the piece as is, of course, the chorale cantus firmus; the

expressive effect of their joint elaboration had been justly admired.24 A further device shaping this movement (as in the opening movement of BWV 140, Wachet auf) is the recurrent refrain, although, since it returns in different keys, some may prefer to see kinship with the Ital- ian ritornello form rather than with the French rondeau.25 In fact, the

21 Although it is possible that Bach may have encountered that work as a keyboard arrangement, such as the one in D'Anglebert's Pieces de clavecin, the setting in BWV 78 suggests that he had an idea of the vocal-instrumental orchestration of this type of work. On the frequent performances of French theatrical dances in German courts and cities and on Bach's friendships with several French dancing masters, see Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne, Dance and the Music ofJ. S. Bach (Bloomington, IN, 1991), especially pp. 11-15.

22 Another related piece is an incomplete "Ciaconne" by Johann Christoph Pez (1664-1716), appearing as the final movement of an Intrada for strings in the M611er MS; see Ex. 3f.

•3 It is, nevertheless, odd that Lully chose to set this scene as a passacaglia in the mi- nor mode; this might be related to the "unspoken (and perhaps deliciously sensual) tension" underlying the scene, as observed by Lois Rosow, in her paper "The Descending Tetrachord: An Emblem Expanded," presented at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Soci- ety for Seventeenth-Century Music.

24 An interesting analysis of Bach's procedure in this movement can be found in Laurence Dreyfus, "Bachian Invention and its Mechanisms," in The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge, 1997), 171-92, especially 184-87; see also Robert Marshall, The Music ofJohann Sebastian Bach (New York, 1989), 74-79 and "Truth and Beauty: J. S. Bach at the Crossroads of Cultural History," Bach XXI (1990): 4-8.

25 This is, in fact, the interpretation of the BWV 140 movement given by McClary, "Talking Politics," 43, although it is not clear why she chose to relate the ritornello structure to the Italian concerto rather than to the aria.

369

370


EXAMPLE 4. Chaconnes and passacaglias in the Lullyan manner

NB: To facilitate comparison, all examples have been re- duced to treble/bass; the bass figures are editorial, except for those in 4a, 4c, and 4f.

(a) Lully, Chaconne from Phaeton (1683), keyboard setting, M6ller MS, mm. 1-5; (b) Bach, Ciaconna: "Meine Tage in dem Leiden," from BWV 150, "Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich" (c. 1705), mm. 1-5; (c) Lully, Passacaille: "Les Plaisirs ont choisi pour asile," Armide (1686), mm. 1-5; (d) Purcell, Passacaglia: "How happy the lover King," King Arthur (1691), mm. 1-5

(a) keyboard 6 6

6 76 465

r i--

(b) strings &

60 bassoon 3 6

(C) flutes & strings 6

6 7 6 4#

--' . . . ' "•' " i~- -0 1 ' " ' ,"

rondeau principle, even if seeming quintessentially French, is avoided in the chaconnes of Lully's tragidies lyriques. The absence of refrains, as well as of persistent ground-bass patterns and other devices on which to anchor long-term memory, creates a sense of timelessness, of the piece continuing forever without beginning or end.26

26 Geoffrey Burgess has proposed that this effect may have been created deliber- ately by Lully to suggest within the tragidie a moment outside time in which Louis XIV and the classical hero become as one; see his "Ritual in the tragidie en musique from Lully's 'Cadmus Et Hermione' (1673) to Rameau's 'Zoroastre' (1749)" Ph.D. dissertation, Cor- nell University, 1998. On the other hand, Judith Schwartz has shown that the Passacaille from Armide, far from being formless, has a balanced, five-part symmetric structure, which also is reflected in posthumous choreographies for the piece, and which might be based on a traditional rhetorical model; see her "The Passacaille in Lully's Armide: Phrase Struc- ture in the Choreography and the Music," Early Music XXVI (1998), 300-20.

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EXAMPLE 4. (continued)

(e) Pez, Ciaconne, M6ller MS (c. 1705), mm. 1-5; (f) Bach, '"Jesu, der du meine Seele," BWV 78 (1724, mm. 1-5); (g) Bach, Ciaccona from Partita No. 2, (ms., 1720), mm. 1-5, transposed to g.

strings? 6 5 6 4 t

/

flutes, oboes

& 7piano Sstrings 6 6

(g) violin 4 6 25 6

1 r

Unlike Lully's dance production numbers, the German organ chaconnes do not form moments within the unfolding of much larger nar- ratives; most are stand-alone works, and thus need to present their entire story from beginning to end. They do so most effectively through carefully planned large-scale architecture, including successive waves of groups of increasingly brilliant variations. As such, they also exhibit a rather different sense of shape than the earlier Italian keyboard chaconnes. These by and large still preserved strong memories of the Spanish-guitar dance improvisations that had inspired them, and often proceeded capriciously, aiming for variety and surprise rather than for cohesive narrative flow. An ancestry in guitar improvisation may, furthermore, account for the generally light and free textures of the Ital- ian chaconnes, which contrasts with the greater contrapuntal density of the German works, a legacy of variation techniques developed in cantus firmus improvisations.

If the different titles of Bach's violin chaconne and organ passacaglia do not have to do with the intrinsic difference between these two works, then how do we explain them? For the organ passacaglia the explanation is simple. As has been known for many years, its ostinato theme, or rather, the first half of this theme, Bach based on a verset from an organ Mass in Andre Raison's Premier livre

371

372


d'orgue (Paris, 1688), a Christe subtitled "trio en passacaille."27 Presum-

ably the genre designation was appropriated along with the tune. The explanation of the title of the violin chaconne is not quite as

straightforward. According to contemporary French and German lexi-

cographers a major mode for the chaconne and a minor mode for the

passacaglia forms part of their oppositional markings, and in many chaconne/passacaglia pairs such differentiation was observed.28 How- ever, outside the pairing context it was often disregarded; as a matter of fact, in both France and Germany far fewer pieces are called "passacaglia" than "chaconne." For example, of the fourteen designated pieces in the two Johann Christoph Bach anthologies (see Table 2), only two are called passacaglia: a Buxtehude organ passacaglia andJ. S. Bach's own passacaglia.29 The chaconnes include four which-like Bach's violin chaconne-employ the Lullyan format; one of these, by B6hm, is in minor. The Andreas Bach Book also includes a chaconne in D minor, from Louis Marchand's Pieces de Clavecin, which Bach is re-

ported to have played.3o Although this piece by his notorious would-be rival is a chaconne en rondeau, it opens with a D-minor triad in precisely the same configuration as the first chord of Bach's violin chaconne. Most likely Bach picked the "ciaccona" title simply because it was the most common one for this kind of piece. My explanation in terms of the more common usage would also be applicable to the chaconne in Cantata BWV 150, marked "Ciaccona" in its only source.

With regard to the relationship to its ancestors, the organ passacaglia also presents a simpler picture than the violin chaconne. It conforms in many ways to the tradition of the earlier German organ chaconnes, the most notable departures probably being the "double-

length" eight-measure ostinato phrase and the concluding fugue. The

double-length phrase is not entirely without precedent, but insofar as I know there is no earlier example of a chaconne or passacaglia serving

27 Peter Williams notes that the second half of Bach's passacaglia theme resembles the ostinato of another Christe in Raison's collection, this one subtitled "Trio en Cha- conne"; see his The Organ Music ofJ. S. Bach, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1980), 255-56. Inciden- tally, Raison's "Trio en Chaconne" and "Trio en Passacaglia" together form a textbook example of the contrasting genre pairing discussed earlier.

28 See, for example, articles "Passacaglio" in Sebastien de Brossard, Dictionaire de musique (Paris, 1703), or in Johann Gottfried Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicali- sche Bibliotec (Leipzig, 1732).

29 Both appear in the Andreas Bach Book in the hand of Bach's eldest brother, Jo- hann Christoph, and both are entitled there "Passacalia" (fols. 55 and 107v), which suggest that pieces titled "passacaglia" were still not that common in the copyist's circles, and that this title here was rendered more or less phonetically.

3o Jacob Adlung, in his Anleitung zu der musikalischer Gerlahrtheit (Erfurt, 1758) re- ports that Bach played through Marchand's two suites for him; see Bachdokumente vol. 3, ed. Werner Neuman and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Leipzig, 1972), 125.

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as prelude to a fugue.31 Because of their comparative lengths, both chaconnes and fugues tend to be placed in prominent positions within multi-movement works, most often at their conclusion. Chaconnes, in

particular, traditionally served as concluding numbers, and it is curious that Bach uses several as opening movements (see Table 1: A2, B 1-3). One wonders if this placement was perceived by contemporary listeners as a strong marking, comparable, say, to the fugue opening Beethoven's

Op. 131. The C-minor passacaglia's weight prevents it from being felt as a mere introduction; but neither could the fugue, which is almost twice as long as the passacaglia, be subsumed as a final variation; this particular marriage clearly is an equal partnership.

The antecedents of the violin chaconne are not so immediately apparent. My association of this work with the Lullyan chaconne was based first of all on the format of a long string of couplets built on a succession of typical generic bass patterns, none of which serves as ostinato for more than a few couplets or acquires motivic significance. However, as with the opening chorus of Cantata 78, several other features can be related to the French operatic chaconne:

(1) The presence of a middle section in the parallel major.32 (2) The frequent pairing of closely similar if not identical cou-

plets. (3) The suggestion of tutti-solo contrast, for example at m. 25

(Ex. 5).33 (4) The rising opening gesture commencing on the second beat

(Ex. 6, mm. 1-2).

Yet that very opening gesture announces dramatically that Bach's D-minor chaconne is not like any earlier chaconne, whether French, German, or Italian. When the downbeat arrives, melody and bass do not ease downward to propel the movement smoothly ahead (compare

31 Peter Williams points to a Johann Krieger Ciacona (Clavieriibung, 1698) with an eight-bar ostinato phrase (Organ Music i: 256 and Ex. 227). With regard to the unusual passacaglia/fugue coupling he speculates that "the fugue was written first, perhaps as a 'Fugue on a Theme of Raison' corresponding to the Fugue on a Theme of Legrenzi (also in C minor)."

32 Lully's chaconnes often include middle sections in the parallel minor, but no excursions to other keys. A contrasting middle section in the parallel mode seems to be a French innovation of the later seventeenth century, found neither in the earlier Italian chaconnes nor in the German pedal pieces, although sometimes showing up in other French-inspired German chaconnes such as the Fischer chaconne in the ABB.

33 This tutti-solo contrast could, however, also be interpreted as a concerto topos, especially if considered along with the ritornello-like restatements of the opening couplet at mid-point (m. 126) and near the end (m. 249), not to mention the virtuoso passage- work in between.

373

374


EXAMPLE 5. Bach, Ciaccona, mm. 23-27

S. /[solo]


5

do d o --

the openings in Ex. 4), but collide on an unprepared dissonance, given further poignancy with an augmented fourth. Rather than an encour- aging push, this opening gesture is more like a cry of pain-a pain not immediately relieved, as another dissonant chord follows and, in the next measure, further motion upward. Thus commences an intense personal journey that passes through a range of emotions, which hardly need verbal description here.34 Instead, I want to return to a consideration of the genetic contributions to this work, since it is clear that these do not all stem from the Lullyan models.

In fact, one can detect traces in this chaconne of much more ancient traditions, perhaps even of the early Spanish guitar improvisations. I am not proposing that Bach was aware of the Spanish guitar roots of the chaconne-although that possibility certainly cannot be ruled out! -but that there were certain devices that had formed part of the chaconne bag-of-tricks from its beginning and had been passed on, even if awareness of their origins became lost along the way.

34 Helga Thoene has proposed on the basis of largely numerological speculations that Bach's violin chaconne was intended as a tombeau for his first wife Maria Barbara (others have suggested a similar intention for his Chromatic Fantasy); see her "Johann Sebastian Bach. Ciaccona-Tanz oder Tombeau. Verborgene Sprache eines berfihmten Werkes," Festschrift zum Leopoldsfest (I5. K6thener Bachfesttage), C6thener Bach-Hefte 6, Ver- 6ffentlichungen des Historischen Museums K6then/Anhalt XIX (K6then, 1994), 14-81. In further support of her argument she claims that Bach imbedded phrases from various sacred works, such as BWV 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden, in the chaconne. For several rea- sons her hypothesis of Bach's chaconne serving as a tombeau is not credible; it seems to come out of a post-18oo conception of the chaconne genre.

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229

231

One of the most striking of these devices, usually introduced near the conclusion for a last-minute heightening of tension, is the stalling on a pitch throughout a couplet, by means of iteration, trills or repeti- tive figures. The sustained or repeated pitch usually is the dominant but sometimes the repetitions extend to other pitches or even to an entire chord, thus creating prolonged dissonances with the changing harmony or bass pattern. This idea, in the form of an extended bario-

lage passage, dominates three of the last couplets of the violin chaconne, mm. 229-41 (Ex. 7); it forms the main topic of the last two cou-

plets of the organ passacaglia (mm. 153-68) and of two of the last

couplets of Cantata BWV 150 (Ex. 8). It had been an almost mandatory trope in the early Italian chaconnes and passacaglias-see mm. 244-47 and 252-55 in Frescobaldi's Cento partite sopra passacaglie (Ex. 9).35 Ex.

o10 shows a nice instance in a chaconne by Matthias Weckmann; other

examples can be found in both vocal and organ chaconnes of Buxte- hude and string chaconnes of Biber.

Those searching for other Spanish guitar evocations will have no trouble finding them in either Bach's violin chaconne or his organ passacaglia: for example batteries of repeated strumming (violin chaconne, mm. 169-76; there is a similar effect in Cantata BWV 150, mm. 41-45-see Ex. 1 ia and b), rustling arpeggiations (violin chaconne, mm. 89-120; organ passacaglia, mm. 120-28; Cantata 150, mm.

45-52), and sudden foot-stamping (violin chaconne, mm. 57-61; or-

gan passacaglia, mm. 128-36). Not everyone may be willing to accept that Bach was aiming for exotic folkloric effects in these passages, but the important point is that many of the traditions accompanying the chaconne had nothing to do with structural schemata.

35 In an earlier version this work ended at m. 255, although such is no longer the case (see Etienne Darbellay: "Le Cento Partite di Frescobaldi: metro, tempo e processo di composizione 1627-1637," Girolamo Frescobaldi nel IV centenario della nascita, eds. Dinko Fabris and Sergio Durante [Florence, 1986], 361-74). Reiterated patterns and sustained trills also appear toward the end of some of Frescobaldi's toccatas, although without the intensifying effect of the accompanying ostinato pattern.

375

?4

EXAMPLE 8. Bach, "Meine Tage in dem Leiden" (BWV 150), mm. 73-79

72

- [strei-] ten, sieg- - [striv-] ing, in

- [strei-] ten, sieg- - [striv-] ing, in

sieg- haft strei- in our striv-

strei- striv-

strings

bsn.

C-

Z z

0

0 0

0 ?: ?1 ?

EXAMPLE 8. (continued)

76

-haft strei- ten, sieg- haft strei- our striv- ing, in our striv-

-haft strei- ten, sieg- haft strei- our striv- ing, in our striv-

-haft strei- ten, strei- ten, sieg- haft our striv- ing, our striv- tory in our

ten, tdig- lich sieg- haft ing, vic- tory in our

bsn.

__ I.T

I[''# r• "

- •t''j'-" '' ' • lar,

:' - l rl [rl, It, IL, ,r , IF I ,2 , GO I I

,J

VK VK

0

378


EXAMPLE 9. Frescobaldi, Cento partite sopra passacaglie, Primo libro di toccate (Rome, 1637), mm. 244-55

244

247

r i

250

253

tr tr

tr tr

[tr]

1 1 ~iis 11 wa,

Thus far I have not addressed the most glaring departure of Bach's chaconne from the Lullyan model: the nearly inces- sant stream of instrumental virtuosity, which, of course, brings to mind the tradition of the German organ chaconne. The nature of the figura- tion is different, however, and lacks the clear affinity of the organ variations with cantus firmus improvisation, which makes one wonder if Bach's unaccompanied chaconne comes out of a parallel German violin solo tradition. The evidence for this is a bit skimpy. The only known unaccompanied German example that preceded Bach's is the Pas- sacaglia with which some fifty years earlier Biber closed his set of 16

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EXAMPLE 10. Weckmann, "Weine nicht" (c. 1663), mm. 350-56

350 f p tr A.

A-

T.

A- men, A- men, A-

B.

A- men, A- men, A-

Smen, A-men, A- men, A- men

T. f

men, A- men, A- men, A-men, A- men, A- men,

- men, A- men, A- men, A-men, A- men, A- men

Org.

"Rosary Sonatas": an ostinato composition built on an unvarying descending tetrachord.36 Lengthy chaconnes for violin and bass are slightly more common, among them a number of examples from middle-late seventeenth-century Vienna (Bertali, Schmelzer, Biber) and

36 For an interesting liturgical interpretation of this passacaglia and its ground pattern within the context of the Rosary sonatas, see Eugen Schmitz, "Biber's Rosenkranz- sonaten," Musica 5 (1951): 235-36. In late seventeenth-century Italy, chaconnes for unaccompanied strings were evidently not unknown; a number of such works for violin and for cello, attributed to G. Colombi, survive in a manuscript in Modena (see Gregory Barnett, "Musical issues of the late seicento: style, social function, and theory in Emilian instrumental music," [Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1997], 135-36 and 395- 96). There is no evidence, however, that Bach was acquainted with these unpublished works.

379

141

EXAMPLE 1la. Bach, Ciaccona, mm. 169-71

169

94 94 '~ a~i

EXAMPLE 1lb. Bach, "Meine Tage in dem Leiden" (BWV 150), mm. 41-43

41, Basso -

ach - te ich nicht, ach- te ich

of men's pow- er, of men 's

strings 0-, ••lI1!/• -Z " I , DI oOf! •" ["

-]

Z=I H

0

z

0

0 0 0 V.

o

C)

?C

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a Passagagli in Johann Jacob Walther's Hortus chelicus (Mainz, 1688); in most of these, including the one by Walther, the bass provides a distinctive ostinato pattern as in the organ chaconnes, rather than a sequence of generic patterns in the Lullyan manner.37

Nevertheless, these works do share with Bach's much later chaconne a virtuoso string technique of polyphonic playing and brilliant

passage work that can be traced back to an ancient European tradition of improvising instrumental divisions on a ground. This tradition, which may have originated in the vihuela and lute circles of sixteenth-

century Spain and Italy, was cultivated and carried to high levels of vir-

tuosity by the English division violists. Their practices in turn had in-

spired string players elsewhere in Europe, among them the great French masters of the viola da gamba such as Lully's one-time pupil and assistant Marin Marais. There is a chaconne for gamba and continuo in Marais's Pieces a une et a' deux violes (Paris, 1686), which provides in some ways a closer model for Bach then the pieces by Biber and Walther.38 Marais's chaconne has 6o couplets compared to Bach's

64, it is in D major with a middle section in D minor, and the couplets employ a succession of traditional generic bass patterns. The opening harmonies of this chaconne are in fact a major version of those em-

ployed by Bach (compare Exs. 2f and 2h). None of this proves Bach knew this particular chaconne by Marais, but he might have known similar French works. There is some Marais in the Andreas Bach Book,39 but no chaconne.

We shall return to Bach's chaconne in order to show how within the confines of the genre Bach succeeds in recreating the spirit of virtuoso improvisation. When Bach decided to end his D-minor Partita with a chaconne in the Lullyan mold, he set himself some severe challenges. In addition to the constraints presented by the medium of a single violin without bass, he chose to work within the formal limitations of a succession of couplets, each with an unvarying metrical framework of four groups of three beats and each ending in the key with which it started. At a time in which much activity at the musical frontier involved the creation of large temporal spaces defined by modulations to different key areas (an enterprise that Bach had fully embraced, for example, in his concerto movements), the constraints imposed by the chaconne must have appeared particularly confining-certainly more so than

37 This is also true of the late seventeenth-century sacred concerto movements with brilliant string obbligatos discussed in n. io.

38 See Marin Marais, The Instrumental Works, vol. i, ed. John Hsu (New York, 1980), 57-73-

:• On f. 78 appears a suite of dances from Alcide arranged for keyboard.

381

382


would have been the case in Lully's time.40 Bach could have relaxed some of these constraints, for example by moving groups of couplets to related keys, a fairly common practice which he himself had followed in Cantata BWV 150. But he elected not to do this except for the excur- sion to the parallel major, feeling perhaps that a key change would have taken away some of the work's momentum.4' Instead he decided to ex-

plore how far afield he could venture within the narrow metric and tonal confines of each couplet.

He loses no time initiating these excursions, and in fact, he raises the stakes for his first try. At the beginning of m. 3 (see Ex. 6), he has

prematurely cadenced back to D, leaving him only two measures to go somewhere and return. Nevertheless, on the second beat (the very point at which we suspended our earlier discussion) he abruptly plunges down to B-flat major-a harmony fraught with danger, since it will exert a

strong pull to move to the relative major. Bach continues to live danger- ously, following that chord by two ambiguous sonorities. The addition of a voice to the first of these (first beat of m. 4) with, say, eighth notes D and E, would have made a move to F almost inevitable. A cadence to D minor does arrive in the nick of time, although it is pretty feeble and

requires the strong "second ending" cadence in m. 8 for solid confir- mation.

I will not take the reader through numerous similar harmonic ventures involving a wide variety of keys, but I do want to point to a few

analogous tricks Bach plays with the meter. In mm. 30 and 31 (Ex. 12) he appears to delay the downbeat by one beat; then he shortens the metric grouping to two beats, and finally to one beat, jumping back on track at the very last moment at m. 33. Occasionally the melodic con- tour even appears to destabilize the placement of the pulse itself; see Ex. 13 (mm. 87-88). (Similar games are played in that other great ex-

ample of simulated improvisation, the approximately contemporary Chromatic Fantasy; see especially mm. 17-27.)

4o This was probably an important reason why Bach and his contemporaries were less and less often turning to the ostinato genres. It may also account in part for the somewhat disparaging remarks by Niedt and by Mattheson, including the latter's com- ment: "In all my days, no Chaconne has ever touched my heart"; see Friedrich Erhardt Niedt, The Musical Guide (1721), tr. Pamela L. Poulton and Irmgard C. Taylor (Oxford, 1989), 136 and 140-41, and Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommener Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), tr. Ernest C. Harriss (Ann Arbor, 1981), 465-66. By 1789 Charles Burney would

judge ground-bass composition a "Gothic" practice and "an unworthy employment for men [like Purcell] possessed of such genius and original resources"; see his A General His- tory of Music, ed. Frank Mercer, (New York, 1957), 2: 394-

41 That the chaconne is preceded by a series of movements all in D minor may have been an additional consideration for avoiding prolonged visits to other keys.

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86


s -0. T

29

go ~ ~

383

384


Sometimes the boundaries between the couplets themselves are ob- scured, although he never cheats on the underlying cadence to D at the

junction points. In mm. 125-33 (Ex. 14), after a decapitated return of the opening theme, we appear to skid right past the beginning of the next couplet (m. 129), to land on a B-flat chord in its third measure

(m. 131), after which we hastily return to D to commence the major section.

Some of these ventures bring to mind a trapeze artist, who swings further and further, reaching safety only at the last instant and leaving his spectators gasping. However, these tricks and devices also recall the

practices of masters of improvisation, whether the Renaissance lute and

gamba virtuosos-as recorded in their pedagogical examples42--or, for that matter, today's great jazz artists and sitar and tabla players, all of whom continually create the illusion of taking momentary flight from the solid ground that supports their improvisations, to the occasional bewilderment of their fellow performers.43

The essence of true improvisation is risk taking: embarking upon dangerous paths with the confidence that you possess the skills to return home safely. In Bach's works one does not find that spirit by iden-

tifying the forces that pull a composition together, such as underlying large-scale structures held in balance by mathematical relationships or reinforced by remote thematic connections. Rather, as I hope I have shown, one finds it by examining the forces that threaten to pull a work

apart. Of course, such "ingenious jesting with art" is merely one of

many facets of this extraordinary work with which Bach fundamentally and irrevocably changed the conception of the chaconne genre.

The earlier type of chaconne survived on the French stage until the first years of the nineteenth century as an extended ensemble dance number, usually in triple time, although it gradually lost most of its

Lullyan features, and tended to have some sort of rondeau or sonata form rather than any kind of strophic variation structure.44 The chaconnes and passacaglias of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for which the two Bach works had formed the almost exclusive points of departure,45 were no longer dances but weighty journeys of the soul,

42 See, for example, the Recercadas sobre tenores Italianos of Diego Ortiz (Tratado de

glosas clausulas [Rome, 1553], 197-34) in which the viol divisions often disregard both the downbeats and the boundaries between couplets.

4-, Bebop drummers were notorious for their playful attempts to make the frontmen lose their place, and tabla players are reputed to play similar games.

44 See the article "Chaconne" by this author in the forthcoming seventh edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

45 A secondary contribution might have been provided by the anomalous Pas- sacaglia from Handel's Seventh Suite in G minor, which with its duple meter and lack of dance character would have loosened further the ties with the older tradition.

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while at the same time serving as showcases for compositional and per- forming virtuosity. Those looking back primarily at Bach's organ passacaglia tended to be mournful, even brooding, and cling tenaciously to a distinctive ostinato. The smaller group inspired by the violin chaconne tended to be less obsessive, and emphasized instrumental dis- play; among those most successful in recapturing the grandeur and im- provisatory spirit of Bach's prototype, and at the same time in moving the genre into new directions, are the first movement, "Tempo di Ciac- cona," of Bela Bart6k's Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin (1944)46 and Sofia Gubaidulina's Ciacona for Piano (1962).47

Duke University

46 The movement combines chaconne gestures with suggestions of sonata form; for an attempt at analysis in terms of sonata form, see Yves Lenoir, "Contributions i l'6tude de la Sonata pour Violon Solo de B61la Bart6k (1944)," Studia Musicologia XXIII (1981), 2o9-60, especially 226-35. Although the movement's caption has been said to refer to its tempo rather than its form, it more likely refers to the chaconne topos, as in eighteenth- century designations like "tempo di minuetto."

47 Gubaidulina's monumental composition includes both Bach's chaconne (especially in Busoni's piano adaptation) and Bartok's movement among its ancestry, although structurally it adheres closer to Bach's strophic model; it combines tonal with serial variation techniques and includes references to traditional chaconne gestures like a climactic dominant-pedal bariolage prolonged for some 33 measures.

385

silbiger bach & the chaconne

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