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BY RICHARD HUDSON
14 For
present-day passacaglie, see Enciclopedia universal ilustrada, XLII, 450,
especially the description of the Cuban bolero, in which the pasacalle is a "tafiido
intermedio de la guitarra despues de la primera parte cantada del bolero, para
continuar luego la segunda. Consta generalmente de la t6nica, subdominante y
dominante, invirticndose en cada una dos compases de 3 por 8." (interlude played
on the guitar after the first sung part of the bolero, in order to continue afterwards
the second. It consists generally of the tonic, subdominant, and dominant, with each
chord occupying two measures of .) For the paseo, see Otto Mayer-Serra, Mzisica
y r"usicos de Latinoamerica (Mexico: Editorial Atlante, S.A., 1947), I, 240, and II,
620.
15 Facsimile edition in Publicaciones de la Asociacidn de Libreros y Amigos del
Libro, Vol. IV (Madrid, 1947).
16 Esquivel Navarro, fol. 26v.
17 The paseo as a promenade occurs
today as part of a dance in Puerto Rico
(see Mayer-Serra, op. cit., II, 745).
18 Keyboard riprese beginning around 1530 are described in Willi Apel, Geschichte
der Orgel- und Klaviermusik bis 1700 (Kassel: Birenreiter, 1967), P. 234 and else-
where, as listed in the index. For lute riprese starting about mid-century see Gerald
Lefkoff, Five Sixteenth-Century Venetian Lute Books (Washington, D. C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 196o). The relationship between the ripresa and the
passacaglia is discussed in Manfred Schuler, "Zur Friihgeschichte der Passacaglia,"
Die Musikforschung, XVI (1963), 121-126; and Giorgio Mainerio, II primo libro de
balli (Venice, 1578), ed. Manfred Schuler (Musikalische Denkmiler, V [Mainz:
B. Schott's S6hne, 1961 ]1), pp. I2-13 of the Einleitung.
totarque . .
."1' Considering Walker's comments on p. 305, it is curious
that this earliest source should come from the New World. However, its
date is so close to the first Spanish source of 1599 (Walker, p. 300) that
by itself it in no way proves the American origin of the dance.
There is also a set of variations on the ciaccona earlier than the
one cited by Walker (p. 317): La chacona a 7 for lute from Le secret
des muses of Nicolas Vallet. This piece appears in the 1618 edition of
Vallet's book and therefore most likely also in the first edition of 1615.21
It displays a preference for the harmonic scheme I-V-II-V, which can
be set beside the other two early harmonic forms of the ciaccona, I-V-IV-
V and the favored one: I-V-vi-V.21 Vallet, although a Frenchman,
lived in Amsterdam from I613 until his death sometime after 1642.
Foscarini (Walker, p. 314), in describing certain pieces as more ap-
propriate to the lute than to the guitar, states that with the latter instru-
ment he actually makes his profession, "si come e' noto 'a quelli, che
m'hanno conosciuto appresso diversi Prencipi, e dentro e fuori d'Italia,
ed in particolare in Fiandra appresso il Serenissimo Arciduca Alberto"22
(as is known by those who have known me to be with various princes,
both inside and outside Italy, and especially in Flanders with the
Archduke Albert). Foscarini was therefore in Brussels at the court of
Albert sometime before the latter's death in 162 I. One wonders if there
might have been some exchange of ideas between Vallet and Foscarini.
Foscarini on several occasions reveals his knowledge of contemporary
French lute practice. I mention in my dissertation a number of similarities
19Rosas de Oquendo y otros, ed. Ruben Vargas Ugarte (Clasicos peruanos, Vol.
V [Lima, 1955]), p. 29.
20oA facsimile of the chacona from the 1618 edition is printed in Georg Reichert,
"Chaconne,"MGG, II, col. io0 I. This edition is entitled Paradisusmusicus testudinis,
whereas the first edition of I6I5 is called Secretumnmusarum.The latter is listed in
Wolfgang Schmieder, Musik alte Drucke bis etwa 1750 (Kataloge der Herzog-
August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel, XII [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,
19671), pp. 338-339 (no. 477). Both editions use the title Le secret des muses on
the pages of music. See also Hans Radke, "Vallet," MGG, XIII, cols. i243-1244.
21 Upper case Roman numerals indicate major triads; lower case minor.
22Foscarini, I quatro libri della chitarra spagnola (no place or date), 3rd un-
numbered page of A i lettori. I know of no reliable source for Foscarini'sfirst two
names. Sanz (Libro I-II, 3rd. ed., 1674, fol. 6) mentions only "Foscarini (que en sus
Obras se intitula el Academico Caliginoso)." Additional information about this
mysterious and important composer is contained in his Intavolatura di chitarra
spagnola, libro secondo (Macerata, 1629), a copy of which I obtained from the
Deutsche Staatsbibliothekin Berlin. On the last page, below the Tavola del presente
libro, appear these words: "Dell'Accademico Caliginoso detto il Furioso, Musico, e
Sonatore, di Liuto, e Tiorba, della Venerabile Compagnia del SantissimoSacramento
d'Ancona." I have found only one brief description of this compagnia in Mario
Natalucci, Ancona attraversoi secoli (Citti di Castello: Unione Arti Grafiche, 1961),
II, 345 (in the section devoted to the I7th century): "Notevole vitalit' mantennero
ancora alcune delle Compagnie o Confraternite, che avevano funzioni caritative e di
assistenza sociale, come quelle del SS. Sacramento e di S. Girolamo . . ." This link
with Ancona gives some support for Walker's theory that Foscarini belonged to
the Accademia dei Caliginosi (Walker, p. 314, fn. 47).
23Unpublished dissertation,
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitit, Freiburg i. Br., 1956,
pp. 141-142.
24 Spohr,
pp. 117-142.
25Kurt von Fischer, MGG, X, cols. 868-877.
26 Lili
"Passacaglia,"
Propper, Der Basso Ostinato als technisches und formbildendes Prinzip,
dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitit, Berlin, 1926 (Hildburghausen: F. W.
Gadow und Sohn, 1926). This work contains transcriptions of a number of early
guitar passacaglieand ciaccone.
27 Lothar Walther, Die Ostinato-Technik in den Chaconne- und
Arienformen
des 17. und 18. Jh. (Schriftenreihe des musikwissenschaftlichenSeminars der Uni-
versitit Miinchen, Studien zur musikalischen Kultur- und Stilgeschichte, Vol. VI
[Wiirzburg-Aumiihle: Konrad Triltsch Verlag, 194o]).
28Johannes Wolf, Handbuch der Notationskunde (Kleine Handbiicher der
Musikgeschichte, VIII [Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hirtel, 1919; reprint, Hildesheim:
Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1963]), II, 157-218.
29 The tuning of the nine strings is shown by
Pujol in Lavignac and de la
Laurencie, Encyclop&die,Part II, Vol. III, p. 2005, and also in Anuario musical, V
(1950), 132.
Example I
GirolamoMontesardo,Nuova inventioned'intavolatura(Florence, i6o6),
p. 2 I: La ciaccona
I
... sopra
I
la G
I
I V vi V
Example2
BenedettoSanseverino,Intavolaturafacile(Milan,I62o), p. 30:
Ciacone[sic] in diversi
modi:Terzomodo
I I I --
I V vi V
32
1 secondo libro di toccate . . . d'intavolaturadi cimbalo et organo (Rome,
1627), pp. 87-88 (Partite sopra ciaccona) and 88-90 (Partite sopra passacagli); printed
in Girolamo Frescobaldi, Keyboard Compositions Preserved in Manuscripts, Part 3
[This volume includes also those printed keyboard works that were not previously
available in a modern edition], ed. W. R. Shindle (Corpus of Early Keyboard
Music, no. 30 [American Institute of Musicology, 1968]), pp. 44-46 and 46-49. The
first editions of Frescobaldi's Toccate . . . Libro primo in I615 and 1616 contained
no pieces on the passacaglia and ciaccona. Therefore those in libro (1627)
II secondo
are his first examples. Frescobaldi issued a new edition of each book in 1637, but
curiously, he removed the passacaglia and ciaccona compositions from Libro II and
added some new ones (including the Cento partite sopra passacagli) to Libro I.
Pierre Pidoux in his edition of Frescobaldi's Orgel- und Klavierwerke (Kassel:
Biirenreiter, 1957-61) uses the 1637 edition of Libro II and therefore omits the varia-
tions sopra passacagliand sopra ciaccona.
33Walker is in error when he describes this work (p. 313) as having a "four-
measure harmonic ostinato." Therefore this piece is another exception to his state-
ment on p. 314 that the length of cursus remains invariable. Frescobaldi has utilized
two different lengths even within the same composition. Both passacaglia and
ciaccona formulae, however, usually encompass four triple groups: hence, four
measures of a simple triple meter such as I or 3, or two measures of I or 6
Example3
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2804: Intavolatura di canti e balli per chitarra, fol. 20':
Ciaccona
I V vi iii IV V
can be seen by comparing the second and third measures in the two
phrases of Ex. 4b.
The technique therefore involves more than the ostinato effects of
rhythm and harmony. In its broadest sense the characteristic quality of
the passacaglia-ciaccona ostinato comes from the random recurrence of a
number of familiar bass formulae that are related to one another by har-
monic or melodic derivation. Some of the formulae are associated with
the passacaglia, others with the ciaccona; still others are essentially
neutral. In a set of variations based on the passacaglia, one or more of the
passacaglia formulae are placed in a prominent position, either through an
appearance in the initial phrase or by frequent occurrence throughout
the piece. Once the passacaglia formulae are established as a central idea
in a composition, all other formulae, including those that are neutral and
occasionally even those associated with the ciaccona, appear as variants.
Partite on the ciaccona are similarly constructed, but with ciaccona for-
mulae dominating.
The formulae originated in rasgueado guitar music, as Walker has
shown. The harmonic form of the passacaglia was originally I-IV-V-I;
the favored form of the ciaccona, I-V-vi-V. From these two separate
schemes other formulae are derived and selected, some of which are
shown in Ex. 5. Some are derived harmonically in early guitar music.
C2 in Ex. 5 appears to be formed by the addition of a IV chord to Ci;
C3 similarly results from the insertion of a iii chord in C2. In later
guitar music and in the music of other media the progressions formed by
the roots of the chords of these formulae become melodic bass-lines.34
Freed from the limitations of root-position triads, the formulae then
evolve melodically. P2 and most of the other passacaglia forms fill in with
3 This can be seen by comparing the root progression in Ex. 3 with the bass-line
of the opening phrase of Ex. 4b. In rasgueado guitar music the fourth chord of C3
is invariably a iii chord. Elsewhere, however, the fourth note is part of a bass
melody and may, as in Ex. 4b, sometimes support a Ie chord. These two examples
also differ somewhat in internal rhythmic design. Ciaccona phrases, which in the
original dance display a fairly fixed rhythm, appear in sets of partite with consider-
able rhythmic variety. The passacaglia formulae, which as ritornelli have no set
pattern at all, tend in partite to imitate the rhythmic characteristics of the ciaccona
(adopting, for example, its triple meter and in many cases its inclination for second-
beat accents). The formulae in Ex. 5 are therefore shown without time values,
since, beyond the requirement that the entire pattern usually fits into four triple
groups, the rhythmic values are free to change.
Example4
GirolamoFrescobaldi,
II secondolibrodi toccate(Rome,1627):
(a) Partite sopra passacagli, mm. i-6 and 79-80
Primaparte
2o
2-" ,*
30!
I
"
(b) Partite sopra ciaccona, mm. I-4 and 41-44
Primaparte
II
-"r
stepwise motion the initial leap of PI.: 5 Sometimes formulae seem to
combine, producing, for example, P4 out of P2 and C2. Some formulae
:35An interest in the insertion of VII in Pi can be traced back even to early
guitar music. Colonna presents in 162o (Intavolatura di chitarra alla spagnuola
[Milan]) a number of passacaglie that begin with III-VII and thus display a pro-
gression much like the second half of the schemes of the romanesca, passamezzo
antico, and the one later called the folia. P2, as a melodic formula, finally emerges
around 1640 in the guitar music of Foscarini, made possible by the
development of
the punteado style (the playing of selected notes on separate courses). P2 also occurs
as a ritornello in some hymn settings of Monteverdi; see Tutte le opere di Claudio
Monteverdi, ed. G. Francesco Malipiero (Asolo, 1926-42), XV, 606-638.
Example5
Someof thePrincipal
Formulae
of thePassacaglia-Ciaccona
Ostinato
Forms (usuallyminor)
Passacaglia CiacconaForms (usuallymajor)
Pi CI
Pz C2
II
,. "• v
P3
C3 v0 I
P4 NeutralForms(majoror minor)
Ni
P5 N2
.. ,
P6 N3
"'" t "- - ' !i
"'
number of the passacaglia forms in Ex. 5 end with the three-note progres-
sion marked by a bracket (6-4-5). This melodic fragment may con-
stitute a link between the ostinato of derived and selected bass formulae,
as it developed in Italy during the I7th century, and the passacaglia
themes of Andre Raison37" and Johann Sebastian Bach.40