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On the Bach Chaconne, Part 4 (Variations 22-32)

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This is the fourth and final part of this series on the Bach Chaconne. Here's part 3 if you want to catch up.  Thanks to those of you who have stuck with me for the whole series! Variations 22-25 The Chaconne’s harmonic consistency—its repeated rhythms and bass lines in the same key—bears a resemblance to the blues form, in which the storytelling potential of the music rests on the composer and performer’s ability to vary a cyclical rhythmic-harmonic scheme in personal and imaginative ways. The historical connection between the baroque dance and African American music is not entirely unfounded—as Ned Sublette writes, “The basic constructive device of the chacona, the thing that characterizes it musically, is also the basic constructive device of African music: the repletion ad infinitum of a cell.” Sublette suggests that the chacona, like the zarabanda, likely traces back to music from the Congo, brought by the Congolese slaves who comprised the majority of slave labor in Cuba (an
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On the Bach Chaconne, Part 3 (Variations 11-21)

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(This is part 3 of this series. For part 1, click  here . For part 2, click here )   Variations 11 -   15 Student: Mr. Heifetz, what do you think of popular music? Heifetz: Swing, boogie-woogie, or … I can hardly pronounce it, Boo-bop or something like that? [ students laugh ] Well, confidentially, I like some of it , very much [ students laugh ] This interaction between a college student and Mr. Heifetz takes place in a short film produced by World Artists Incorporated, entitled “Portrait of an Artist.” The film, released in 1953, depicts Heifetz reluctantly but obligingly agreeing to visit a class of music students on an idyllic American university campus. The premise of Heifetz’s visit is that he came to look over some manuscripts in the library—the professor who served as his liaison has, however, assembled his students in the music hall in the hopes of cajoling Heifetz to meet them. When Heifetz agrees, the students are predictably starstruck, bubbling over with questions. A few t
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