Chaconne in A minor for organ

Hello. This is an attempt at chaconne form. I studied ones by Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and I think a few others. I'm not quite sure if I pulled it off. What I do know is that this work is a set of variations on a bass theme. The ostinato is not as simple as it could be, probably a bad thing, and its long (15 seconds). Does having a chaconne theme that is as complex as mine (by comparison) disqualify it from being such a work?

Mediafire download for the Mp3. No more worries over that ISP of mine.

Updated 10/6: Whew! Another heavy revision. I can't seem to keep my hands off this piece. I've added another section between the inverted ostinato section (measures 77-100) and the coda, and there are many other spots where I've changed things. There is now a recurring motif/texture/rhythm that is used very often.

There are 15 iterations of the ostinato. 2 of them are heavily altered (measures 17 and 53), most of the others more or less remain the same (some have minor changes). The 3 inverted ostinato statements show no variation, though they do a decent job of building tension. I try and hold this tension for a short while (measures 101 through 108) with some improvisation before returning to the normal ostinato (another 3 statements of it, 109 to 132, the 'new' section I'd written). The coda has also been altered.

The prelude and fantasia are more or less complete (as well as a shorter, minute long piece). The fugue is what's holding things up more than anything else.

Chances are, there is still some fixing up to do.

Bazelis-2-Chaconne-v3.mid

Bazelis-2-Chaconne-v3.pdf

Not familiar with organ music at all.

I enjoyed this.

I enjoyed 2:00 to the end most.

Thank you for the reply, Wendel. I'm sorry to say you may not like my revision, since I heavily edited/axed the section more or less after 2 minutes.

One thing I still need to do is add some breathing space against that constant onslaught of 16ths in the second half (something I've always been a bit weak in).

I listened to the Midi. It sounded okay. The organ pdf looked a little difficult, especially that pedal part at measure 60.

I play organ and will look at this tomorrow at the instrument. I'm not a virtuoso but always looking for new music :)

Do you play the organ? What was this written for?

The main problem with this piece is the SCORE. It's atrocious with ledger lines EVERYwhere and (too many and too high) and staff voicing isn't good and you should move some rests to clean up "collisions". In other words, it could look a BIT more professional and crystal.

For the music itself? Good job! That pedal work in the middle seems difficult, but I don't play organ, so I wouldn't know.

*laughs a little sheepishly at himself* yeah, Morivou I still am not so good at reading sheet music so I wouldn't know a good/proper score if it smacked me in the face and screamed at me. That, and I don't use Sibelius enough to know its foibles much. Really, it's very silly of me. If I just stuck to it I could probably get better at reading it.

I was a little worried about the feasibility of the pedal section at measure 60, too. It's a strongly mutated variation of the ostinato. I have that uppervoice in the ostinato just to reinforce their shared notes (or at least that was the idea). The more I look at it the better suited it seems to being done in the upper ranges by the hands.

I play keyboard/piano, though not as well as I might like. I try to keep in mind the limitations of the player, though sometimes I am sure I slip up.

Thank you for your insights and opinions.

What I might do... Put those arpeggios in the left hand, then add pedal beats to the first one.. Either in harmony or just playing the tonic or even just the starting note of each arpeggio to give it rhythm and depth. Maybe an octave lower on the pedals? I don't know. You would just have to try some things.

The pedal part is a bit difficult. My rule of thumb is if you are worried about its feasability of a pedal part, try moving your feet in the rhythm of those parts. Then determine whether or not the organist would be able to accurately hit every note (requiring both the movement of feet downwards and horizontally/vertically to align with the proper pedal) with their feet during that time. This would appear to require a skilled player, not impossible, but most likely an instructor or someone higher in skill level would be who you should go to if you want someone to perform this in a recital or anything of the nature.

I liked it overall, a bit more polishing on the pedal part (and a lot on the presentation of the score) and I could see this being peformed with good reviews overall.

Btw, you mentioned an onslaught of 16th notes. Did you mean 8ths? Or did you just cut that part?

Since I'm not writing in music notation I might get the terms a little confused. At the moment I've taken Morivou's advice on the pedal part and moved it into the upper voices, and some other minor changes.

I am thinking of writing this as part of a small collection. Something like,

Prelude

Chaconne

Interlude (very brief)

Fugue

I am probably in over my head here, but I'm trying to write a double fugue out of the chaconne theme. I start it off with an exposition of the derived theme, but after that things get a little hazy. Anyway, the idea is to kinda hint at the chaconne before re-introducing it as a fugue subject.

Rhythmically, Theme B seems to work well. It's the counterpoint that needs some adjustment.

It may be a little while before I'm satisfied enough with my work/revisions to post it.

Thank you all again for listening and giving your advice

To be honest, I haven't listened to the mp3, but looking at the score, the pedal part in question (starting at measure 60) is actually rather elementary. Any organist should have relative ease working out the passage, and it would be rather fun to play it.

have you thought about a Baroque style harpsichord suite, but for organ? Maybe in this order

Prelude

Chaconne

Toccata

Fugue

Postlude

just recommendations, nothing binding

Godspeed on your composition

To be honest, I haven't listened to the mp3, but looking at the score, the pedal part in question (starting at measure 60) is actually rather elementary. Any organist should have relative ease working out the passage, and it would be rather fun to play it.

have you thought about a Baroque style harpsichord suite, but for organ? Maybe in this order

Prelude

Chaconne

Toccata

Fugue

Postlude

just recommendations, nothing binding

Godspeed on your composition

It's more the speed at which it is played than the note values.

It's more the speed at which it is played than the note values.

Pedaling speed is easily increased with practise. A lot of Baroque repertoire requires faster pedaling than what is called for in this (beautiful) Chaconne. The only difficulty would be deciding which feet to play with, which to cross over or under, etc. The biggest issue would probably be playing legato.

I just listened to the mp3 and I think that there is a lot of potential to use the pedal in this piece. However, where it currently is, it does little to affect the piece, so I recommend that either the composer move the major pedal part towards the end of the piece or extend the piece to include more opportunities for the pedal. You should try to make the pedal entrance dramatic.

This would sound very nice on a real organ with a 32' in the pedal. :)

Your site attacked me with awesome organ music.

I'm sorry that I can't offer useful advice for improving the chaconne. Still, I think it was pretty cool. I don't think the theme is too complicated, and it certainly doesn't preclude it from being a chaconne (it sounds like a chaconne, after all). It has a nice rhythm to it, and the pauses in particular (especially at 2:15) provide a powerful drive.

LOL that's quite kind of you, schrodin.

As for the pedals, DeMaistre, I had that midi up an octave so I could make the score more legible. I'd neglected to sink it back down so it sounds higher than it should be :x (you'll notice that the score says something about 32' in the beginning)

I wasn't going to post this just yet, but a lot of you seem interested so here ya go: I think I should start using another host....

I've got a good prelude going, more or less complete, followed by the chaconne (some changes were made, mostly minor), a fantasia that's incomplete, and a fugue that I absolutely hate at the moment (I will more than likely end up scrapping it and starting over), and two very brief ideas I can expand upon (ideas for movements come out of nowhere when I least expect them).

As I said, this poor beastie is very incomplete and sketchy as it is. Until I get it to a point where I'm satisfied I don't want to post it just yet.

I've been going so overkill on this project I'm going to have to stop and take a nice long breather soon to get my creative juices goin again.

Thank you all for listening and giving your opinions/insights. I must admit I'm kind of shocked you guys seem to like this so much... can't say I feel I've really earned it.

Updated. I hope the score is less aggravating this time around. I also made sure the midi wasn't an octave higher than it needed to be (had to do that for sibelius in order to make the pedal notes more readable).

Hey, i think it had some very nice parts, but the harmony did not sound baroque. I have one question for you , at ms : 68, what are the blfat in pedals doing there? it ends on a a minor chord in ms 69. why bflat? you put in on a octave c, well ok, if you had c major with blfat, its correctly resolved to A ( as the third of f major) but in this case i cant see its function? This has an very "modern haromy, sounds very romantic at some parts, i dont understand why u use Eb, are you at any time in blfat major or g minor? at ms 39? what kind of harmony is that??, E in top voice, Eb in middle voice, E in bass? it has not any other haromic function then to sound chromatic and very dissonant, it allmost a jazzy rachmaninov chord.

The melody is nice, but if you want to write baroque music i think you should look at baroque harmony and the common progressions and how to resolve dissonance and voice leading.

Here is a little thing i wrote with you theme, it shows you some basic baroque harmony and progressions, feel free to use it :)

Finale 2009 - [hjelp].pdf

hjelp.mid

Hope this helps

SimenN