The Chaconne Across 300 Years
My last post featured music constructed around a repeating bass line, or ostinato. We listened to Johann Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D as well as passacaglias by Handel and Bach. Now, let’s return to the ostinato with another type of musical composition that was popular in the Baroque period, the chaconne. Like the passacaglia, the repeating bass line of the chaconne gave Baroque composers a great opportunity to write endlessly inventive variations. …