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Welcome to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.

This hour, we’re all about that bass — the chaconne, to be specific. From Peru to Paris, and from the street to the operatic stage, this harmonic-bass formula has had us singing, dancing, and strumming for more than four centuries, having swept through Europe along with the Spanish guitar. We’ll trace the chaconne from its mythical island origins through the many delightful variations passed from musician to musician over the years, with settings by Juan de Arañes, Monteverdi, J. S. Bach, and more. Even our featured recording keeps them coming; La Centifolia’s release Ciaccona!

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MUSIC TRACK
Spanish Dances
The Harp Consort, Andrew Lawrence-King
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | 054727734021 (1995)
Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz
Tr. 5 Chaconas y marionas (~4:34)

Andrew Lawrence-King and the Harp Consort with “Chaconas y marionas” from Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz’ Luz y norte musical, a treatise on playing and singing to the Spanish guitar, harp, and organ published in Madrid in 1677. // Harpist Ruiz de Ribayaz had visited Peru in 1667 in the entourage of the Spanish colonial viceroy.

MUSIC CLIP
D’Amor mormora il vento
La Boz Galana
Ramee | RAM1909 (2020)
Antonio Carbonichi
Tr. 3 Ciaccona passegiata per B (Fade out or continue in background around :27)

You might know the chaconne, or ciaccona, as one of the many stock musical patterns known as “grounds” or ostinato basses — things like the passacaglia, la folia, or Romanesca. These repeated musical structures, like the one we’re hearing in the background played by La Boz Galana, were often based on popular songs and dances, and served as a basis for improvisation. Around the beginning of the seventeenth century, chamber music with basso continuo became an important commodity in the world of printed music, and instrumentalists began to translate their improvisation techniques into music notation. Among these techniques, we find these patterns: particular bass lines and chord progressions that remained popular compositional and improvisational devices well into the eighteenth century. Here’s an example played by L’Arpeggiata.

MUSIC TRACK
Alla Napoletana
L'Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar
Erato | 190296603587 (2021)
Andrea Falconieri, arr. Christina Pluhar
Tr. 2. O vezzosetta – L’eroica (~2:33)

Christina Pluhar led L’Arpeggiata on a pair of chaconnes by Andrea Falconieri, “O vezzosetta” and “L’eroica.”

Chaconne, c-h-a-c-o-n-n-e, is a common spelling in English, French, and German for the Spanish chacona, c-h-a-c-o-n-a, which typically appears in Italian as c-i-a-c-c-o-n-a. The first documented appearance of the word chacona is in a 1598 poem by a Spanish colonist in Peru, Mateo Rosas de Oquendo. From a colonizer’s perspective, he described both the chacona and the zarabanda (or sarabande) as “demonic” dances practiced by the indigenous Peruvians. Quechua chronicler Guaman Poma associated the chacona with the lowest classes of indigenous and criollo Peruvians around 1615.

The chacona’s seedy reputation accompanied it to Europe with returning colonists. In Spain, it was known as a baile, one of the “low” dances of the street, tavern, and public theaters along with the zarabanda, jacara, and seguidilla, all of which were more physically suggestive than the stylized danzas practiced at court. Bailes like the chacona also served as dance songs, in which sexual and satirical lyrics alternate with a refrain celebrating the so-called “Island of Chacona,” a mythical, voluptuous utopia that came to be associated with the Spanish colonies in the Americas. We’ll hear Juan de Arañes’ 1632 version of the dance song, with the traditional refrain “a la vida bona, vida vámonos a Chacona” . . . “to the good life, let’s all go to Chacona.”

MUSIC TRACK
Musica en el Quijote
Orphenica Lyra, José Miguel Moreno
Glossa | GCD920207 (2005)
Juan Arañes
Tr. 3 Chacona: A la vida bona (~1:47)

José Miguel Moreno and Orphenica Lyra played Juan de Arañes’ chacona “A la vida bona,” with its refrain “vámonos a Chacona."

That refrain raises another interesting possibility about the salacious aspect of the chaconne’s origin story. In a 1621 poetry collection by Pedro Arias Pérez, there is another dance-song text with a similar “Let’s all go to Chacona” refrain; but these lyrics state that the island is also known as Cucaña. In addition to the word’s modern reference to a game, Cucaña may be a transliteration of Cockaigne, the medieval mythical utopia of pleasure and happiness--or it could be a reference to cuca, the Quechua word for the coca leaf. Since we know that Spanish colonists imitated and exploited the indigenous practice of chewing coca leaves to induce [quote] “great contentment,” some have speculated that there could be some connection here with the “vida bona” of the chacona song refrains.

MUSIC TRACK
Vida Bona
La Sonorosa, Edwin Garcia
La Ma de Guido | LMG2158 (2019)
Luis de Briceño
Tr. 18 Vida, vida – Vida bona (~3:50)

Edwin Garcia and La Sonorosa with “Vida, vida – Vida bona” by Luis de Briçeño, from his guitar method printed in Paris in 1626.

From the beginning, the chacona was closely associated with the early five-course Spanish guitar, often called “Baroque guitar” nowadays. Its first appearance in notated music was in Girolamo Montesardo’s 1606 Nuova inventione d’intavolatura, or “Newly invented tablature.” Montesardo’s book is also the first guitar music printed in Italy, and in it he claims to have developed the chord notation system known as alfabeto. The guitar had already been introduced to Italian musicians by Spanish colonists in the kingdom of Naples, and it became an increasingly trendy instrument over the course of the seventeenth century. The guitar’s popularity led to an increase in print music that catered to it, which in turn spread formulas like the chacona favored by Spanish guitarists.

MUSIC TRACK
Giovanni Felice Sances: Complete Arias, 1636
Bud Roach
Musica Omnia | MO-0611 (2014)
Giovanni Felice Sances
Tr. 17 Accenti Queruli (4:09)

Bud Roach sang and played “Accenti Queruli,” a 1636 cantata on the ciaccona formula by Giovanni Felice Sances.

[Theme music begins]

Early music can mean a lot of things. What does it mean to you? Let us know your thoughts and ideas. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org, where you’ll also find playlists and an archive of past shows.

You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.

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(1:00) Mid Break Music Bed:

MUSIC TRACK (Naxos) in prod folder
https://iub.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=8.551439
Passacaglia della vita
Cembaless
Naxos | 8.551439 (2021)
Andrea Falconieri
Tr. 6 Ciaccona (excerpt of 2:42)

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Welcome back…This hour we’re exploring the development of the chaconne, or chacona.

There are a lot of ways that musicians adapted the dance structure, chord progression, and general attitude associated with the chacona as it spread throughout Europe. For a while, though, one composer’s version became the gold standard, after his interpretation of the ciaccona rhythm and bass contour went viral, so to speak. Claudio Monteverdi’s “Zefiro torna” duet is among the best-known early seventeenth-century ciacconas, and this is one of the best- known recordings of it, by L’Arpeggiata.

MUSIC TRACK
Monteverdi: Teatro d’Amore
L’Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar, dir
Erato | GCD920915 (2009)
Claudio Monteverdi
Tr. 16: Zefiro torna (actual time around 6:50)

Nuria Rial and Phillipe Jarrousky sang Monteverdi’s “Zefiro torna,” with the ensemble L’Arpeggiata, from their CD “Teatro D’Amore.”

The ciaccona even made its way into church music. In his second volume of Sacred Symphonies published in 1647, Heinrich Schütz borrowed part of the “Zefiro torna” ciaccona from his mentor Monteverdi for a section of the sacred concerto “Es steh Gott auf;” “Let God arise.” Let’s hear that excerpt—you’ll recognize the harmonies from the previous piece we just heard. But you might also notice, if you are theoretically inclined, that near the end Schutz manipluates the repeating harmonic pattern and changes it to a minor key before moving back to major at the end. Keep that in mind when we hear the Bach piece in a few minutes—but first, here’s the Schutz excerpt.

MUSIC TRACK
Schütz: Symphonie Sacrae
Cappella Augustana, Matteo Messori
Brilliant Classics | BC92210 (2005/2019)
Heinrich Schütz
Tr. 9 Es steh Gott auf, SWV 356 (~6:07) [exerpt is 2:26]
Mike: Please go in at exactly 3:40 and play until the end (total of 2:26)

Matteo Messori led Cappella Augustana in that excerpt from Heinrich Schütz’s sacred concerto “Es steh Gott auf,” featuring a partial contrafact of Monteverdi’s “Zefiro torna.”

As time passed, the chaconne and similar ground basses such as the passacaglia were often used for slower, more stately pieces. One of the most celebrated examples of the chaconne occurs as the last movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s second violin partita in D minor. This profound and deeply expressive piece is a world away from the bawdy dances that brought these improvisatory chord patterns to Europe in the first place. It is thought that Bach’s chaconne might be a reflection on the loss of this first wife, Barbara, who passed away unbeknownst to him while he was away on a trip. Here is Bach’s monumental chaconne played on baroque violin by Amandine Beyer.

MUSIC TRACK
Portrait
Amandine Beyer
Zig-Zag Territoires | ZZT325 (2013)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Tr. 21 V. Ciaccona (12:50)

Amandine Beyer performed the Ciaccona from J. S. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004.

La Centifolia, led by Leila Schayegh, released their album Ciaccona! in January 2023. Schayegh has curated an energetic selection of chaconnes and other ground-bass works for 1 to 3 violins and continuo. Here’s a chaconne by Purcell.

MUSIC TRACK
Ciaccona!
La Centifolia, Leila Schayegh
Glossa | GCD924207 (2023)
Henry Purcell
Tr. 10 The Gordion Knot Unty'd, Z. 597: VI. Chaconne (~1:56)

Leila Schayegh and La Centifolia with a chaconne from Henry Purcell’s “The Gordion Knot Unty’d,” incidental music to a play published in 1691.

We’ll close with another Purcell piece, appropriately titled “Three Parts upon a Ground.” This is La Centifolia, from the CD Ciaccona.

MUSIC TRACK
Ciaccona!
La Centifolia, Leila Schayegh
Glossa | GCD924207 (2023)
Henry Purcell
Tr. 4: Tr. 1: Purcell: Three Parts upon a Ground (~4:45)

Henry Purcell’s “Three Parts Upon a Ground.” Leila Schayegh led La Centifolia on this hour’s featured recording, Ciaccona!, released on the Glossa label in January 2023.

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Harmonia is a production of WFIU and part of the educational mission of Indiana University.
Support comes from Early Music America: a national organization that advocates and supports the historical performance of music of the past, the community of artists who create it, and the listeners whose lives are enriched by it. On the web at EarlyMusicAmerica-dot-org.

Additional resources come from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

We welcome your thoughts about any part of this program, or about early music in general. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org. You can follow us on Facebook by searching for Harmonia Early Music.

The writer for this edition of Harmonia was Chelsey Belt.

Thanks to our studio engineer Michael Paskash, and our production team: LuAnn Johnson, Aaron Cain, and John Bailey. I’m Angela Mariani, inviting you to join us again for the next edition of Harmonia.

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