Chaconne and Hahn

I discovered Chaconne in 2002.

I had bought a cheap CD 4-pack of classical composers earlier that day, while shopping for other things. When I got home, I listened first to the Bach CD, Bach being my favorite composer. While I listened, I began to write, and as I did, my mind opened up in that way that the mind sometimes does during moments of contemplation. A song began that I had never heard. The first few notes stopped my writing. I sat and listened to the entire piece, mesmerized at its heartbreaking beauty.

And then I forgot about it until about a year ago, when I heard the piece while listening to NPR. The young man performing it, Joshua Bell, is a rising star in the classical world. He talked about the piece he was playing, Chaconne in Dm; about its complexity and range. He said that in his opinion, the Age of Enlightenment began with the composition of that piece.

Since then, my fascination with the Chaconne has only increased.

It was the final movement of Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin, written some time between 1717 and 1723. The Partita contains five movements: Allemanda, Corrente, Sarabanda, Giga, and Ciaccona. The last movement (called Chaconne in English), is longer than the rest of the movements combined, a 256-measure harmonic masterpiece in both major and minor modes, using every violin technique that was known in Bach's time. (If you really want to dissect the musical theory behind the Chaconne, check out Larry Solomon's article here.)

Johannes Brahams wrote of the Chaconne: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

In the past few months, I've listened to many performances of the Chaconne. I've heard most of the 20th century violin masters perform it: Jascha Haifetz; Yehudi Menuhin; Nathan Milstein; and Yitzhak Perlman, whose performace was my favorite until today.

I listen to music in my headphones while I work. In the morning, I typically listen to something steady and upbeat- techno or rock. In the early afternoon, I often listen to something aggressive- punk or metal. In the late afternoon, I sometimes listen to classical for focus during the home stretch. Today I wanted to hear Chaconne, but I was tired of listening to the masters play and wanted to hear a young fresh take on the piece. On a whim, while browsing through a youtube search, I clicked on a link for a performance by a young woman named Hilary Hahn, and then I continued to work.

About a minute later, I stopped and spent the next eighteen minutes sitting quite still. It was like hearing it for the first time. I realized that I'd never heard a woman play it before. Hahn's performance is slower, more graceful. Her tone is clear and pure. Her phrasing is balanced and dynamic. Her use of vibrato is restrained and consistent.



Having lost eighteen minutes of work, I attempted to return to my duties, but the silence was deafening, so I found other clips of Hahn's performances. They are captivating.

Here, she plays with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra:



And here, she performs Der Erlkoenig. Her agility in this piece is startling. It's an orchestral piece, but she performs it unaccompanied, playing many of the voices simultaneously. See how her whole body moves between voices. At several points, you can hear her plucking notes with her left hand while bowing their counterpoints with her right:



I've just discovered an interesting twist. In 2005, Hilary Hahn toured with a young up-and-coming folk singer named Josh Ritter. Ritter began college studying neuroscience and ended up with a degree in American History through Narrative Folk Music. A man after my own heart. Below is a video clip of the two playing Ritter's song Thin Blue Flame, but first some thoughts about this clip.

I like the lyrics in this one. I've heard of a lot of good folk music from the decades between the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, but since then most of it has been bad protest songs. This particular song is about today. Hahn and Ritter remind me of a 21st Century Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. It's intriguing to see that though Hahn is already a master of classical technique, she is not afraid to branch out into simpler music, less analytical and more intuitive. Classical was the music of kings, but folk is the music of, well, the common folk. During her classical performances, her expression is masterful, focused and calm. Here, she is searching, not yet content. See the way she looks at Ritter when he sings the line "peace in the valley" near 7:30.

And for some reason, this one put tears in my eyes, while Hahn was playing her solo, around 5:20- 6:10. I think it's because as much as I enjoyed her rendition of Chaconne, I'd rather hear her play from the heart.