Recently an aged violin-maker and I are experiementing extra-rich bass effect (particularly the G string) and this piece as well as the Siciliano of Bach’s Sonata I (G minor) are good gauge to test the result.

I agree with the Guitar POV above. The violin should emulate the effect of a guitar. A violinst’s risk is in overshooting the goal of emotional intensity and abuse his bow. There had been a tendency to overdo this piece with passion, since Brahms (“powerful feelings”, “the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience” ref wikipedia page – in short “Fear & Tremble” ).

My experience indicates that the piece is best played with an instrument that has good resonance and echo. Shortcoming of metal string could be compensated by austere bowing.

John/jwebster@gmail.com

I also believe that our interpretations change as we grow older – does Mr. Steinhardt believe this too?

The funniest story (apocryphal I’m sure!) about the Chaconne I’ve heard is that when Nathan Milstein had the D minor Partita on one program, he left off the Chaconne quite by accident; the next time he played a recital in that city, it had the D minor Partita on the program again and it’s been said he finished the ENTIRE partita this time with the Chaconne, and then played the entire Chaconne again.

Recent recordings I’ve enjoyed include the second Gidon Kremer set on ECM and the delightful reading with Julia Fischer on Pentatone.

Second, J. S. Bach’s Chaconne has a little-known antecedent: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Passagalia for solo violin. Bach was almost surely aware of this composition; it may even have been a model, or signpost at least, for his Chaconne. I can recommend a version:
Biber: Violin Sonatas and Passagalia, by Romanesca, featuring Andrew Manze
It comes in a double disc set too, with more sonatas: Biber: Violin Sonatas, but will be much harder to find since the commercial shelf life of baroque, gallant, and ‘classical’ music is so darn short. (Try Amazon; they offer used discs too, and their search engine is way less finicky than CD Universe’s.)

Andrew Manze (MAN-zee) hasn’t tackled the Chaconne to my knowledge, but he is a magician of early violin music. If you like Bach and jazz, you’ll love Manze: he improvises, and does so beautifully. This irritates the heck out of purists, but who cares? There is already ample play-every-note-just-the-way-it-was-written music on disc. Skillful, artistic improvisation is rare, and wonderful too.
The best Bach I’ve yet heard is this:
JS Bach: Solo and Double Violin Concertos, Andrew Manze, Rachel Podger, and the Academy of Ancient Music. (And check out the price!)
(That same web-page links to Rachel Podger’s Bach Chaconne, btw.)
Everything I’ve got featuring Manze in a leading role, be it playing or directing, is among the best of my (pretty big) early music collection.

I wish happy listening to one and all…

I’ve got one of the recordings David links us to on the exhaustive list. It’s the Monica Huggett – Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (and please read the comments by Brain Broadus). Huggett is one of several violinists on the ‘exhaustive list’ who play not modern but period instruments: Stradivarius’s, or violins by other makers of that vintage, or exact replicas of the instruments of that era—and whose strings are natural gut, not machine-wound metal.
The impact on sonority of this difference cannot be understated: most ‘Classical’ (a misnomer) music is played on modern metal-stringed instruments. To my ear, accustomed to free-singing natural gut strings and to the performance techniques of the period the pieces were composed in, metal strings drone.
Those who prefer modern instruments might complain in retort that the authentic, period instruments ‘screech’, but I promise you as someone who played metal (briefly! – and I haven’t played in decades) before discovering gut, that the ‘screechiness’ is easy to acclimate to, and, as soon as you do so, it doesn’t sound screechy any longer but natural.

I first discovered Monica Huggett on The Academy of Ancient Music’s two disc release of Vivaldi’s Opus 4, ‘La Stravaganza’ (ignore the Amazon.com credits-listing, which bizarrely misnames Huggett as Timothy Mason!). It’s cliché to say that a violinist “sings”, but cliché or not, that’s what Huggett’s output sounds like, much more so than most others. (You can test my claim, without a shred of doubt, in the London Fortepiano Trio’s 3 disc set of Mozart’s trios for piano, violin, and cello, especially in the opening trio, K.254.)
It should hardly surprise then that in the liner notes to her J S Bach set (featuring the Chaccone), she writes,
“…we violinists have here a work which is the envy of all other instrumentalists, evident from the large number of arrangements to have been made. The fame of the music is not always transmitted into frequent listenings (except in the case of the Chaconne) because the pieces can come across as technical tours de force of interest mainly to violinists. In this recording I have tried to dwell less on the virtuosic aspects in favour of a more purely musical interpretation.”
(Her Chaconne clocks in at 14:07 – I wonder about the times of others…? Do more pyrotechnic performances clock in much quicker?
Anyway…)

More from the liner notes, this written by Mark Audus:
(quote)
…the d-minor Partita is best known for the celebrated Ciaccona (Chaconne), a series of thirty-four variations on the opening eight-bar phrase cast in a three-part arch form (minor-major-minor) whose components, though progressively shorter, give the impression of perfect symmetry. The movement is a masterpiece of dynamic pacing and perfectly judged transition from one variation to the next; but, far from the Ciaccona overshadowing the preceding movements, it seems that they lead logically to this peroration. This tension generated by the austere two opening dances is further heightened by the Sarabanda, which anticipates the affective intensity of the Ciaccona.
(unquote)

That might seem awfully technical for the layperson. I’m a musical layperson too, so I’ll offer a brief translation: the Ciaccona/Chaconne is best appreciated as the finale of the five-movement piece it concludes. (Huggett’s performance of the whole piece clocks in at 31:55—but it’s worth the half-hour, even if impossible to fit into the ROS show.)
You might also appreciate knowing that the movements of the Partitas are akin to suites: linked compositions based on dances: on the rhythms and musical architectures of dances—such as the Allemanda (or Allemande – ‘German’), Corrente (or Courante – a French dance, I think), Sarabanda (or Sarabande), and Giga – the Gigue – or the Jig!

Don’t expect to feel the urge to take to the floor however. Zillions of movements of baroque and Style galant pieces were based on dances, but few composers wrote them with the intention they would serve that function (unless written expressly for that purpose). Dances simply provided a known form to pin your melodies and harmonies to (yeah, that’s an oversimplification). I’m almost to my question(s) now…

The ‘exhaustive list’ includes several other period instrument violinists: Sigiswald Kuijken, Rachel Podger, Jaap Schroder, Bob van Asperen, Lucy van Dael, and Elizabeth Wallfisch, (and perhaps several others I’m not aware of as period players).

I’d like to hear on the show at least a snippet or two comparing a metal-stringed treatment to an authentic gut-stringed.

But what I’d really like to ask is: is it easier to make the Ciaconna sound fluid and free on gut, or metal? I suspect the former, but it’s only a suspicion. What do the experts think?

Thank you!

As for my just-unattainable goal…..as an audio engineer I have always wanted to capture a brilliant performance of the Chaconne….something like Jeff Buckley’s rendition of Hallejula…..