• John Harbison
  • Chaconne (2001)

  • Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
  • fl, cl(bcl), vn, vc, pf
  • 5 min

Programme Note

Composer note:

Chaconne for piano and four instruments was composed in summer of 2000 and is dedicated to Andrew and Barbara Imbrie. I have written a number of pieces that follow some sort of ground bass principal. Andrew Imbrie's music, lucidly constructed but full of free invention, suggested a return to this strict against free format. This time I wanted to choose a pattern as familiar to our times as the descending chromatic used in Bach's cantatas 12 and 78 (and more loosely in his D Minor violin chaconne) was in the 1700s. The pattern is shorter than its native habitat. Through a similar process of re-harmonization the piece gradually widens its focus.

— John Harbison

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