LDV94

18 BRAHMS ∙ PIANO CONCERTO IN D MINOR OP.15 The famous Ciaccona (Chaconne), which constitutes the last movement of the Partita for unaccompanied violin in D minor BWV 1004, was composed during the Cöthen period and exists in a calligraphic copy dated 1720, the year of the death of Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara, the mother of seven of his children. If the Adagio of the D minor Concerto, so close to Bach, was explicitly dedicated to Schumann, the transcription for piano left hand of Bach’s Chaconne can be said to be dedicated in spirit to Clara. In 1877, just after he had completed it, he wrote to her: ‘The Chaconne is for me one of the most wonderful and incomprehensible pieces of music. On a single staff, for a small instrument, Bach creates a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I were to imagine how I could have made, conceived the piece, I know for certain that the overwhelming excitement and shock would have driven me mad.’ This exceptionally elevatedmovement was bound to fascinateBrahms. It possesses a gravity and interiority that are close to his own, not to mention the art of infinite variation that Brahms exploited more than anyone else, with both learning and sensuality: one need only think of the Variations on a theme by Schumann op.9, the Variations on a theme by Handel op.24 or the Theme and Variations – also in D minor – from the second movement of the String Sextet no.1. It should also be remembered that the finale of the Fourth Symphony, composed in 1884-85, is a passacaglia, a form related to the chaconne.