Bach’s Chaconne - Where Do I Start? With Steve Goss!

There is a mountain of published literature on Bach’s Chaconne. This can be overwhelming for the performer. In this livestream, I’ll guide you through a number of ideas presented by different authors and suggest some strategies for getting to know this incredible work more intimately.
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[@tkoken1]

I first heard the Chaconne in 1960, kind of cursorily. It did not dawn on me until I heard Segovia's version that it was as significant a piece of music as the Brandenburgs, or the Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue. Then I heard Rolf Schroeder's version with a curved bow. Repeatedly. With no distractions. Then any other version I could get my hands on. Music is a language I speak, but do not understand: Its effect on me, and on my mental processes, especially the Chaconne, is profound. I got my living as a mathematician and computer programmer; in periods of burnout, or fatigue, the unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas were restorative, and rehabilitative for me. Thank you so very much for this exposition. I would very much like to hear it extended, enhanced, and elucidated on, if that's a possibility.

[@osovagabundo1]

Im just discovering this at 60. Im sure Ive heard it along the way but i heard it on guitar recently and it struck me and ive been listening to different versions on the internet. I can see that it is joining a short list of works that i will always have on or at least nearby. Its a compelling work that pulls you to ingest it and find a nourishing satisfaction as you listen. Thanks for this . I think i found this on the app called Idagio.

[@jcpractices]

This is wonderful, thank you!! It's amazing that this masterclass is available for free! I'm working on the Chaconne now (and uploading progress videos!), and even though it's a stretch for me, it's been such a rewarding journey so far.

[@tonebase]

Happy to hear that!

[@theswoletuner5460]

Mark from Kitchener, Ontario. Church organist fascinated by this towering masterpiece.

[@ArtHistoryMemes-fi6op]

Dear Mark, please visit my channel, I deconstructed the chaconne in 3 individual contrapuntal lines: www.youtube.com/@thelostartofcounterpoint8648 If you want, I can make an organ version of this deconstruction. All the best, Laurent Matthys

[@fzanon]

I tend to take this very fine lecture for what it is, not for what one thinks it should be. As such, for all students and many professional players and teachers who are not as acquainted with the current literature as Steve is, he has laid some splendid ground of minimal knowledge of how to grasp the overall plan of the Ciaccona. I find it baffling one still has to ask what use it is for. Well, it is the same use of knowing what the doors and windows are for in a large building. Knowing, for instance, that variations stand in pairs, or that the process of intensification comes to a comparative halt in the major section has direct impact on the performance dynamics. It helps to prevent a disjointed performance. Guessing Bach structured his harmonies around chorales that have a particular meaning in his liturgical works can remind one of the necessity of preserving his original articulation marks, and not to play, for instance, all runs with a generic articulation plan. That is part of the answer to the question "how a performer can use this information". If one wants a book of rules on how to play the ciaccona or any piece of music, I find this a very poor question to start with. The good analysis is the one that opens the gates for an individual point of view. May I add one plays the music, not necessarily the analysis. Structural aspects are not a user´s guide. Even historical/subjective context comes as a possible gateway to original thought, not as a must. Performance, I believe, is the end-result of one´s experience with the score, and one´s knowledge and subjective experience with it.

[@hongteeguitar]

Great lecture! Thank you

[@tonebase]

You're very welcome!

[@Koga-Ed]

Great in-depth information about this wonderfully beautiful composition. Thank you so much for sharing it here ! 🙏🏼 @tonebase: what about a part 2 in which you analyze different interpretations of this piece as performed by some renowned musicians ? I think that would be fantastic 😊

[@dc8955]

I do know that the bridge on some baroque violins were flatter like a modern fiddlers bridge that the chords would be easier to sound. Also the baroque mow may lend itself to multiple stops. This may lead to a softer sound than you get with a modern instrument setup and Tourte style bow. I think you have to understand the limitations and advantages of the period instruments.

[@fzanon]

Thank you for the compelling lecture, Steve. It is a veryuseful overview. I'd just like to point Lully lived in the17th Century, so I assume the blurring of passacaglia and chaconne must have happened earlier.

[@jean-yvesPrax]

You're right: you find beautiful Chaconnes and Passacailles in very early 17th, such as Monteverdi (Lamento della Nimfa is a chaconne), Barbara Strozzi, Purcell (lamento of Didon), Biber (last rosary sonata is a Passacaille), Charpentier (Magngificat à 3 voix), Lully (Armide). Chaconne is said to have been imported from New World, and Passacaille meaning "passa calle" in spanish, was a song, with repetitive pattern, sung by workers on boat harbors. At the beginning you could distinguish the two by structure, but soon they melted and finally we cannot say what really makes the difference

[@ContrapuntalComposer]

At 44 minutes: Tetrachord "E" appears to be a symmetrical construction whole-half-whole step. Maybe that is why it is in the middle of the list.

[@ClassicalGuitarMusings]

Guitar God

[@robertwilson214]

For years my favourites were Rachmaninoff 2nd,moonlight and pathetique....then I found chaconne hidden away...most people outside classical have never heard of it!

[@waterliliesbymonet7827]

Oh I am so glad you found it! For me, as a classical musician, it's been there all my life, like the Sun. 😅

[@trevorsimpson3452]

It's easier on guitar - the struggle on the violin (because it stretches fingers and bow to the limits) is what makes it so searing and searching on that instrument

[@JaxonBurn]

32:39 I often hear this talked about-- spelling Bach's name in notes within the score-- but I've never understood it. What note is 'H' referring to, and why/how? Would appreciate anyone who knows explaining it to me.

[@gowSteve210]

In German H means B and B means Bb

[@JaxonBurn]

@@gowSteve210 thank you so much!

[@monkeydyo]

38:35 The sarabande/chaconne rhythm is in fact well suggested from the first page of the Ciaccona and fits perfectly well throughout the whole piece. Although it's technically impossible for violinists, guitarists/lutenists/pianists should keep playing the bass with the first bars's rhythm. It's also worth pointing out the hidden imitative entries in those first bars (A-A-Bb-A then E-E-F-D), which are given that same rhythm. I think it's an issue that most performers base their choices mostly on harmony and specific character of each variation. Letting rhythm and hidden counterpoint on the side simply kills a big amount of power and makes a lot of parts sound uncomplete, sometimes boring to many people. The most striking part in that sense is the major section : if music writing suggests trumpets and timpani, then seeing that section as "rythmically less intense" (23:46) is a countersense and usually make performers loose the dance and use excessive rubato, while Bach's writing here is subliming the rhythmical essence of counterpoint. Unfortunately, a majority of players are still influenced by dozens of recordings that feature unjustified performance choices and repeat what they've heard more than they do research and analyse by themselves. Bach's Chaconne is so much richier, deeper and more powerful that musicians usually make of it...

[@jean-yvesPrax]

Thank You, although I feel a bit cumbersome to listen a theorist that makes a 1 hour 18 mn lecture on the Bach Chaconne without a single note of music! This reminds me the joke " Beethoven était tellement sourd que toute sa vie il a cru qui'l faisait de la peinture" ! More seriously when you spend 3 hours a day during one year working on this piece (the minimum required to dare to perform it), obsessed by this music, visited by the music of your own death, you face a multitude of questions on interpretation, on the meanings of this monumental music, and appreciate to get some clues, some tips and tracks, even if you finally choose to pursue your own way. Let me give some example (of practitioner questioning ) : - on chaconne usually at this period, the strong beat (the one on which the dancer puts the foot on the ground) is the second beat, the first is a "levée" - right ? If so, this would push to play the first chord of the bar "plaqué" and the second "délié"... not easy with a violin. Agree ? - if the tempo of the chaconne is very low, should it be played as a "funeral march" ? and then, is the scenario of JSBach composing it for the funeral of his first wife pertinent ? - in the second part in D Major beginning, JS Bach proposes a "choral" like music that must be played very "polyphonically", smooth and calm, leading to the beautiful arpeggios that Joshua Bell qualifies as an "encounter with an angel", and leading finally to this gorgeous "seconde" showing an infinite tenderness... and then, progressively, appear these 4 repeated notes, like if the death was knocking at the door : what does this pattern means ??? Is it a kind of bridge leading to the 3rd part ? - and I could add questions like this for the whole day... and sorry for my english !

[@franciscoacosta1667]

But You wouldn't ask For the questions he asked. Not everyone has to have the credentials You want to Say something justified about any topic. Diversity it's okay.

[@grantnichols9932]

Wonderful. I love classical guitar, and the violin versions of the Chaconne have never "hit home". This video encouraged me to look for a solo violin rendition that resonated with me, and then I wondered: "Has Richard Tognetti recorded the Chaconne?" The answer is Yes. Did it hit home? Yes. Here is a link - please try it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGPMemuhg9xnfJo

[@JohnTravena]

Grumeaux’s and Hahn’s and Menuhin’s are great as well.

[@davidmdyer838]

His theological idea about CCC explaining why it's NOT called a Chaconne doesn't explain why all the other movements of the sonata are also in Italian. They are Allemanda, Corrente, Sarabanda, Giga yet when he described the sontata he called them by French names as well, and there is no such theological explanation for this. Why everyone inists on translating them from Bach's original Italian to French I don't know. They are not just the same dances said in different languages, they are different dances.

[@josephmarcello7481]

Poor gentlemen! Well, the temptation is always great amidst intellectual brains to fathom the secrets of great music or great men, it is a past time destined to failure before it even begins. But such are the conceits of self-appointed analysts that they feel they can render some deeply seminal revelations which purport to shed light on the mystery of genius. Not so. Well that brain may be able to lay there. The structure and infrastructure, theoretical grid work behind the music, such structure, infrastructure and good work are in themselves. Helpless to produce anything of greatness at all. All. They are always in service of a true and divine inspiration which is unanalyzable and spontaneous, a gift from the cosmos to the creator in question. Even that creator does not know how or why he came to give birth to his creation. So all of you mystery Mongoose may exhale and sit back, realizing that there is no holy grail at the end of this quest. Quest. If anything, do your own analysis make your own deep insights. But do not rely upon a self-satisfied armchair musical philosopher.

[@franciscoacosta1667]

What a terrible drama you wrote. 📉

[@Oldman808]

It’s a terrible death to be talked to death!

[@JohnTravena]

Listen to something else.

[@dexblue]

Dex Quire here; Officer for the Cosmodemonic Classical Guitar Police; I've pulled you over, Tonebase, for this Musical Offense Against Bach: Guitar players: stop playing Bach's D minor Chaconne on the guitar. Compared to the violin it is unbelievably wimpy. There's no attack. The violin remorselessly attacks. Bach wrote it for the violin - a screeching loud slashing instrument. Might there be a reason Bach wrote it for the violin? The guitar doesn't slash. Not even Slash can slash on the guitar - not even if its electric and run through a Marshall stack. The classical guitar don't slash. Plucked instrument notes start dying the second they are plucked. Bowed instrument notes get louder and more violent with the scrape of the bow. From measure one, the D minor Chaconne - as played on the violin - grabs you by the throat and throws you off a 30 story balcony. The guitar? Ahem ... cough, cough, I'd rather listen to a steel drum version. Bach knew all about plucked instruments and wrote beautifully for them. New music, guys. As Mr. Goss said in a recent interview: Now is the Golden Age of the guitar. Players: search out new compositions written especially for your instrument. Stop trying to construct a repertoire for the guitar that never was (another Goss paraphrase). I'm letting you off with a warning because you've got guitar as part of your outfit ... otherwise ....