Partita for Violin No. 2 (Bach)

The Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) by Johann Sebastian Bach was written between 1717 and 1720. It is a part of his compositional cycle called Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

Structure

Except for the ciaccona, the movements are dance types of the time, and they are frequently listed by their French names: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, and Chaconne. The final movement is written in the form of variations, and lasts approximately as long as the first four movements combined.

Performance time of the whole partita varies between 26 and 32 minutes, depending on the approach and style of the performer.

Reception

Professor Helga Thoene suggests that this partita, and especially its last movement, was a tombeau written in memory of Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (who died in 1720), though this theory is controversial.

Yehudi Menuhin called the Chaconne "the greatest structure for solo violin that exists".

Violinist Joshua Bell has said the Chaconne is "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect." He played the piece busking in L'Enfant Plaza for The Washington Post.

Johannes Brahms in a letter to Clara Schumann described the piece, "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man [Bach] writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

Transcriptions of the Ciaccona

Raymond Erickson has identified approximately two hundred transcriptions and arrangements of Bach's Ciaccona.

Piano transcriptions

Since Bach's time, several transcriptions of the piece have been made for other instruments, particularly for the piano (including those by Ferruccio Busoni, Alexander Siloti, Joachim Raff, and Rudolf Lutz), and for the piano left-hand (by Johannes Brahms, Paul Wittgenstein, and Géza Zichy).

Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann each wrote piano accompaniments for the work.

Carl Reinecke transcribed the piece for piano duet.

Organ transcriptions

The earliest version for organ is by William Thomas Best. Further transcriptions are by John Cook, Wilhelm Middelschulte, Walter Henry Goss-Custard (1915–55), and Henri Messerer (1838–1923).

In the preface to his 1955 transcription, John Cook writes: "The Chaconne is sublimely satisfying in its original form, yet many will agree that a single violin is only able to hint at the vast implications of much of this music … It is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that Bach would have chosen the organ, had he transcribed the Chaconne himself, as the instrument best suited to the scale of his ideas … A good performance on the violin may be taken as the best guide to interpretation on the organ – the two instruments are not without their points in common, and both were beloved of Bach."

Cello transcriptions

There is a transcription of the Chaconne for solo cello made by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch in 2015. This has been published by the Hofmeister Musikverlag in Leipzig.

Guitar transcriptions

The Chaconne is often performed on guitar. Marc Pincherle, Secretary of the French Society of Musicology in Paris, wrote in 1930: "If, insofar as certain rapid monodic passages are concerned, opinion is divided between the violin and the guitar as the better medium, the guitar always triumphs in polyphonic passages; that is to say almost throughout the entire work. The timbre of the guitar creates new and emotional resonance and unsuspected dynamic gradations in those passages which might have been created purely for the violin; as for instance the variations in arpeggi."

The most well-known transcription for guitar is the Segovia transcription. Many guitarists today prefer to play the Chaconne directly from the violin score.

Orchestra transcriptions

There are a number of transcriptions of the Chaconne for orchestras of different sizes, including Leopold Stokowski's transcription for a full symphony orchestra.

Other transcriptions

Gustav Leonhardt arranged the Partita for harpsichord solo. Anne Dudley arranged Bach's Chaconne for piano trio, and a recording by the Eroica Trio appears on their Baroque album. The Chaconne has also been arranged for harpsichord by Pieter-Jan Belder and for violin plus four voices by Christoph Poppen and the Hilliard Ensemble. The Chaconne was masterfully transcribed for pedal harp by Dewey Owens, published by Lyra, and also by Skaila Kanga.

Literature

In 2005 Joseph C. Mastroianni published Chaconne The Novel. Milo, abandoned by the father who introduced him to Chaconne, studied in Spain for four years to master the piece.

In 2008 Arnold Steinhardt, the violin soloist and first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet, published Violin Dreams, a memoir about his life as a violinist and about his ultimate challenge: playing Bach's Chaconne.

In 2017 Márta Ábrahám and Barnabás Dukay published a book about Bach's Chaconne: Excerpts from Eternity – The Purification of Time and Character, the Fulfilment of Love and Cooperation with the Celestial Will in Johann Sebastian Bach's Ciaccona for Violin.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

• Erickson, Raymond. 2003. "Toward a 21st-Century Interpretation of Bach's Ciaccona for Solo Violin, BWV 1004/5". The American Bach Society Newsletter, Spring, 2003.
• Erickson, Raymond. 2019. "Popularisation and transformation: Bach's Ciaccona for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1004/5, in the Nineteenth Century." Bach and Chopin: Baroque Traditions in the Music of the Romantics, ed. Szymon Paczkowski, 371–395. Warsaw: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, 2019.
• Erickson, Raymond. 2020. "Bach's Violin Ciaccona in America". EMAg: The Magazine of Early Music America 26/3 (September 2020), 46–52.
• Oestreich, James R. (2 December 2001). "Music; Gravest Bach Is Suddenly a Best Seller". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 January 2022.

External links

• Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• "On Bach's Second Violin Partita" by Dmitri N. Smirnov, 30 May 2018, Wikilivres.ru
• Bach's Chaconne in D minor for solo violin: An application through analysis by Larry Solomon
• Chaconne for organ on YouTube, arranged by W. T. Best, played by D'Arcy Trinkwon
• Chaconne on YouTube, Nathan Milstein
• Recording of Busoni's transcription of the Chaconne by Boris Giltburg in MP3 format (archived on the Wayback Machine)
• Partita No. 2 (complete), played on electric bass by Dave Grossman (audio and video)
• Podcast, Arnold Steinhardt discusses his lifelong quest to master the chaconne
• Partita No. 2, performed on guitar by Yaron Hasson (from the Wayback Machine)
• "Rethinking Bach's Violin Ciaccona"(commentary by Raymond Erickson, with Mikyung Kim, violin and Julie Iwasa, dancer) on YouTube
• "Bach's Ciaccona for Unaccompanied Violin: A Reassessment" (commentary by Raymond Erickson; Luosha Fang, violin) on YouTube, played by Luosha Fang
• German article on Bachs Chaconne
• TV documentary about the secrets of the Ciaccona on YouTube

1. Partita for Violin No. 3 (Bach)
2. Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Bach)
3. Partita
4. Partita in A minor for solo flute (Bach)
5. Partitas for keyboard (Bach)
6. List of keyboard and lute compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
7. Nach Bach
8. List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
9. Hilary Hahn
10. List of chamber music works by Johann Sebastian Bach
11. Cello Suites (Bach)
12. Suite (Bach)
13. Orchestral suites (Bach)
14. Johann Sebastian Bach
15. Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
16. Brandenburg Concertos
17. Violin Sonata No. 2 (Ysaÿe)
18. List of transcriptions of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
19. Six Sonatas for solo violin (Ysaÿe)
20. Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019