Put yourself into J.S. Bach’s head and listen to the Ciaccona like you’ve never heard it before!
In 1720 J.S. Bach wrote his Partita in d minor for solo violin. That was also the year when his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach, passed away unexpectedly. The German musicologist Helga Thoene interprets the Partia as an epitaph to Maria Barbara, a monumental masterpiece in itself, full of hidden messages, numerology, symbolism and hidden chorale quotations.
Prof. Thoene has a theory that within the theme of the Ciaccona Bach has hidden a numerical code of his wife’s name and year of death . The chords and melodies in the violin part derive from several of his own hymns, all with messages about death and grief but also about hope.In this arrangement the chorale fragments are sung along with the violin part like pieces of a perfectly laid puzzle.
Violinist Klara Hellgren, member of the string quintet Uppsala Chamber Soloists, and the singers Marie Alexis, soprano, Anna Zander Sand, alto, Fredrik Mattsson, tenor and Joakim Schuster, bass, all of whom are members of The Swedish Radio Choir, are performing Bach’s Ciaconna in this unique arrangement for solo violin and four voices inspired by the analysis of Prof. Helga Thoene.