{"id":25038,"date":"2023-03-14T14:42:51","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T13:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/?p=4516"},"modified":"2023-03-14T16:33:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T15:33:39","slug":"what-is-a-passacaglia","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/what-is-a-passacaglia\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Passacaglia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Know what a passacaglia is? Stephen Johnson explains <\/p>

By BBC Music Magazine\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

A passacaglia is a musical form that originated in Spain in the 17th century and is often based on a ground bass and written in triple metre. It was initially written to accompany a type of Spanish dance.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\nForget the offside rule. If you really want to involve yourself in a hair-splitting, mare\u2019s-nest-untangling fight about terminology, take two musicologists to the pub, prime them with a drink or two, then ask them the difference between \u2018Passacaglia\u2019 and \u2018Chaconne\u2019. Or better still, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-is-a-cadenza\/"\">What is a\u2026 Cadenza?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/discovering-music-rubato\/"\">What is\u2026 Rubato?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-concerto\/"\">What is a\u2026 Concerto?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/discovering-music-crescendo\/"\">What is a\u2026 Crescendo<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Don\u2019t bother with etymology either. If you do, you will discover that the former derives from a Spanish phrase meaning \u2018a step in an alley\u2019, and the latter from a Basque word meaning \u2018pretty\u2019. You then have the business of trying to explain how either applies to Purcell\u2019s \u2018<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/didos-lament-lyrics\/"\">When I am laid in earth<\/a><\/strong>\u2019, the \u2018Crucifixus\u2019 from <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/a-guide-to-bachs-mass-in-b-minor-and-its-best-recordings\/"\">Bach\u2019s Mass in B minor<\/a><\/strong>, the grandly tragic finale of Brahms\u2019s Fourth Symphony and the nightmarish second interlude from Act II of Britten\u2019s Peter Grimes<\/em>.<\/p>\nWe can say for certain that both terms emerged in the early <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/baroque-music-guide\/"\">Baroque era<\/a><\/strong>, and that originally they were dance forms. In dance it\u2019s always a good idea to know what the basic rhythmic pattern is, and here the first designated chaconnes and passacaglias agreed: three beats in a bar, usually in a measured, stately tempo.<\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/discovering-music-sonata-form\/"\">What is\u2026 Sonata Form?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-symphony\/"\">What is a\u2026 Symphony?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-a-concerto-grosso\/"\">What is a concerto grosso?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-is-the-difference-between-a-concerto-and-a-symphony\/"\">What is the difference between a concerto and a symphony?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/20-greatest-symphonies-all-time\/"\">The 20 Greatest Symphonies of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Quite often you\u2019ll find the same basic rhythm: simply One \u2013 Two \u2013 (three) \u2013 AND One \u2013 Two \u2013 (rest). It\u2019s there, either up-front or pulsing away in the background, throughout the famous Chaconne from Bach\u2019s Partita in D minor for solo violin, as it is in the finale of Hindemith\u2019s Suite Nobilissima Visione<\/em> and the central section of the finale of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/dmitri-shostakovich\/"\">Shostakovich<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s 15th Symphony.<\/p>\nHowever, the main propelling idea is usually in the bass. Think of the 12-bar bass in <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/jazz-music-what-it-is-and-how-it-evolved\/"\">jazz<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/blues-music\/"\">blues<\/a><\/strong> or swing and you\u2019ll get the idea. A simple but distinctive bass figure is played over and over, rotating like a carousel. Eventually the repeated pattern is established so firmly in the mind that you can stop repeating the bass and let the memory of it propel the music. So long as the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-harmony-in-music\/"\">harmonies<\/a><\/strong> associated with the bass-line are still there, the mind does the rest \u2013 like a kind of aural join-the-dots puzzle.<\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-isritornello\/"\">What is\u2026Ritornello?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-bel-canto\/"\">What is Bel Canto?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-scherzo\/"\">What is a\u2026 Scherzo?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-string-quartet\/"\">What is a String Quartet?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Interestingly, the greatest passacaglias tend to be tragic. Perhaps it\u2019s the feeling of inexorability. <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/claudio-monteverdi\/"\">Monteverdi<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s despairing nymph in Lamento della ninfa<\/em>, <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/guide-purcell-dido-and-aeneas-best-recordings\/"\">Purcell\u2019s Dido<\/a><\/strong> bent on self-destruction, Christ submitting to his fate in <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/a-guide-to-bachs-mass-in-b-minor-and-its-best-recordings\/"\">Bach\u2019s Mass<\/a><\/strong>, the forces of annihilation closing in on <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/peter-grimes-britten\/"\">Grimes<\/a> <\/strong>\u2013 that implacable repeating bass lays it all bare. So don\u2019t let anyone tell you that form and feeling are two separate issues: passacaglia (or is it chaconne?) gives the lie to that.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Know what a passacaglia is? 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Stephen Johnson explains","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/25038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}