Chaconne G minor

Chaconne in G minor

There was a time when the so-called Vitali Chaconne was in every violinist’s repertoire - and when more than a few found it profitable to issue their own edition of it. That was before we got as fastidious as we are these days about authenticity in matters of attribution and interpretation. When it was first published, by Mendelssohn’s favourite violinist Ferdinand David in his Hohe Schule des Violinspiels, it no doubt seemed reasonable to attribute it to the most famous member of a family of string players and composers prominent in Bologna and Modena in the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries. More recently, comparison of the Chaconne with works definitely known to be by Tomaso Vitali indicate that it is not by him but some so far unidentified Italian contemporary.

As for authenticity in interpretation, it is clear that David’s arrangement of the violin and figured-bass original, in both the realisation of the piano part and the elaboration of the violin part, is the work of a nineteenth-century musician. Much the same is true, with added virtuosity value, in the other commonly used editions by Charlier, Auer and Francescatti. But it is the virtuoso potential that violinists have always liked about the piece. When Heifetz played it in his sensational American debut concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1917 - at the head of programme including also a reduction of a Wieniawski Concerto and Auer’s edition of Paganini’s 24th Caprice - it was not to show off his taste in baroque decoration.

In whatever version it is performed, even the original, the Chaconne is remarkable for the apparently spontaneous display of different facets of the violin, of bowing techniques and characteristic colours and figurations. It is remarkable also in that, while tirelessly sustaining a cycle of eight-bar variations in accordance with the conventions of the chaconne, it avoids predictability or regularity by means of well placed changes of tempo and mood. The opening eight-bar theme is repeated just often enough in (or near) its original form to clarify the long-term structure.