The Ciaccona (Chaconne) is a unique work in the history of music: it is the first slow movement that closes a cyclic work and has a greater number of bars than the other movements of the cycle together (without the repetitions). Perhaps it is also the longest movement (play duration) for a solo instrument ever. It contains the structure and features of several musical forms: theme with variations (eight-bars-theme, thirty variations and again the theme - like in the Goldberg Variations), Tombeau, Chaconne, a mass-opening Kyrie eleison without words (d-minor part - Kyrie eleison, D-major part - Christe eleison, and again Kyrie eleison) - and unites them all into a new organic whole.
The probable reason for the origin of this unique composition is one
that is even more interesting and touching.
Bach writes exclusively impersonal music, music dedicated to God,
and not simply an expression of personal joy or suffering, the way the composers in the romantic period did. Probably there is only one exception - the Ciaccona - written due to the death of his first wife Maria Barbara, which connects those two worlds: the human world with the divine world.
Svetoslav Costoff refers to the rhythmic and melodic similarity between the opening tones from Kyrie eleison of the Mass in B minor (BWV 232) and those of the Ciaccona theme. He interprets this monumental movement as Bach‘s intimate prayer due to the death of the composer‘s first wife - “Lord, have mercy” (Kyrie eleison). From this point of view, the three big parts of the Ciaccona receive a new meaning, different than being just a Tombeau (musical tombstone, burial ceremony).
Through this point of view we find again the whole spiritual circle of
life, relived from the human soul: Kyrie eleison - the soul is above with God; Christe eleison - it is down on earth, experiencing joy and suffering; Kyrie eleison - it returns back home. Through the Ciaccona, Bach lets go of his wife in a spiritual way, because he could not do this physically (after three months of traveling, he returns home in July 1720 and learns about her death, despite that he left her in wonderful health). It is quite marvelous in that occasion to observe the connection between the so-called Christe eleison (D-major part) and the Kyrie after it (d-minor part): the last four bars of the major part and the first four bars of the
following minor part build one variation! Somehow through this major-minor connection (life on earth and the life above), Bach opens the door for his wife for the return of her soul back to heaven.
Performed by Svetoslav Costoff in Berlin on the 8th of June, 2018
Негізгі бет The Great Ciaccona (Chaconne) from BACH on Guitar!!! Svetoslav Costoff
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