The Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) by Johann Sebastian Bach was written between 1717 and 1720. It is a part of his compositional cycle called Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Except for the ciaccona, the movements are dance types of the time, and they are frequently listed by their French names: Allemande, Courante, Sarbande, Gigue and Chaconne. The final movement is written in the form of variations, and lasts approximately as long as the first four movements combined. Performance time of the whole partita varies between 26 and 32 minutes, depending on the approach and style of the performer.
Professor Helga Thoene suggests that this partita, and especially its last movement, was a tombeau written in memory of Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara Bach (who died in 1720), though this theory is controversial. Yehudi Menuhin called the Chaconne “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists”. Violinist Joshua Bell has said the Chaconne is “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.” Brahms in a letter to Clara Schumann described the piece, “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man [Bach] 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.”
Since Bach’s time, several transcriptions of the piece have been made for other instruments, particularly for the piano by Busoni and for the piano left-hand by Brahms. Mendelssohn and Schumann each wrote piano accompaniments for the work. Carl Reinecke transcribed the piece for piano duet. There is a transcription of the Chaconne for solo cello made by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch in 2015. This has been published by the Hofmeister Musikverlag in Leipzig.
The Chaconne is often performed on guitar. Marc Pincherle, Secretary of the French Society of Musicology in Paris, wrote in 1930: “If, insofar as certain rapid monodic passages are concerned, opinion is divided between the violin and the guitar as the better medium, the guitar always triumphs in polyphonic passages; that is to say almost throughout the entire work. The timbre of the guitar creates new and emotional resonance and unsuspected dynamic gradations in those passages which might have been created purely for the violin; as for instance the variations in arpeggi.” The most well-known transcription for guitar is the Segovia transcription. Many guitarists today prefer to play the Chaconne directly from the violin score.
