Chaconne

from Partita No.2 in D minor BWV 1004

For the violinist the Chaconne in D minor is the most challenging of all Bach’s pieces for a solo string instrument and not only because it is the longest. For the listener it is an inexhaustible source of fascination – not least because there are so many different ways of listening to it on so many different levels. Few will hear it, in detail, for what it fundamentally is: a series of 64 four-bar variations on a four-chord harmonic progression. The composer probably did not intend that it should be heard that way, since he never presents the progression in its basic form. What he surely did intend, however, is that the ear should perceive at least the overall symmetry of the piece, which is divided into two equal halves with the opening four-bar sarabande theme recalled in its original form after the first thirty variations and again at the end. The structure could, on the other hand, be heard as a ternary pattern: after the return of the sarabande theme in the middle of the piece, the key changes to D major and remains in that key long enough to form a distinct and substantial middle section before the return to D minor.