Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musici...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him
the greatest composer of all time.
Alongside Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin and
Bach's six cello suites, his Partitas and Sonatas
(three apiece) for solo violin stand out among their
comparatively few siblings as magnificent music written
for an unaccompanied stringed instrument. And while
they also represent the zenith of polyphonic writing
for a non-keyboard instrument, Bach's sonatas and
partitas were also crucially important in the
development of violin technique. With their colossal
scope, huge technical demands, and musical complexity,
and notwithstanding their awesome intellectual
intensity, these creations greatly transcended anything
that had preceded them, including the Partitas for solo
violin by von Westhoff (1696), and various comparable
solo works by Biber, Pisendel, and others. It seems
most probable that either the Dresden virtuosi Pisendel
or Volumier, or even more likely the Cöthen
Konzertmeister Spiess, would have been the first
players to attempt these exceptionally challenging
works, all of which sound as if they were written for
an age of instrumental virtuosity that still lay far in
the future.
The sonatas are restricted to four movements
(slow-fast-slow-fast, as with the early sonata da
chiesa), one of which is a fugue. The Partitas are
generally more extended, and of unorthodox formal
design (as perhaps is implied by their more
wide-ranging generic title), and by the more
exploratory, improvisatory feel of the music even as
they consist of sequences of Baroque dances. The
awesome and eloquent Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV
1004, seems for the most part to follow the
conventional outline of the Baroque suite, opening with
an earnest and purposeful Allemanda unexpectedly free
of chordal multiple-stopping. There follow a Corrente
and a Sarabanda, whose brief coda furnishes the link
with the succeeding Giga.
However, this work concludes with the most labyrinthine
and intellectually powerful single movement ever
devised for an unaccompanied string instrument. This is
Bach's famous Chaconne (originally "Ciaccona"), a
colossal arched series of 64 stunning variants upon the
stark, open-ended four-measure phrase heard at the
beginning. Two monumental outer sections in the minor
enclose a major-key central episode, and this great
structure encompasses every aspect of violin-playing
technique and contrapuntal ingenuity that would have
been known in Bach's day. The Chaconne, whose duration
exceeds 15 minutes (and is thus longer than the rest of
the work put together) is often performed as a
free-standing movement.
Although originally written for Solo Violin. I created
this Arrangement of the Partita No. 2 in D Minor (BWV
1004) and transposed to G Minor for Viola.
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