Passacaglia

(It.; Fr. passacaille; Ger. passacalia; It. passacaglio, passagallo, passacagli,

passacaglie; Sp. pasacalle, passacalle).
In 19th- and 20th-century music, a set of ground-bass or ostinato variations, usually of a
serious character; in the earliest sources, a short, improvised ritornello between the
strophes of a song. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘chaconne’ (the
forms ‘chaconne’ and ‘passacaglia’ are used throughout this article regardless of the
national tradition under discussion). This article concentrates on the early years of the
passacaglia, when the term had a quite distinct meaning. Its subsequent history, which
largely parallels that of the chaconne, is summarized here; the two genres and their close
relationship are explored in greater detail in the article CHACONNE.

1. Beginnings in Spain and Italy.

The passacaglia appears to have originated in early 17th-century Spain as the pasacalle, a
brief improvisation (usually barely more than a few rhythmically strummed cadential chords)
that guitarists played between the strophes of a song, somewhat in the nature of a vamp.
The term comes from pasar (to walk) and calle (street), possibly deriving from outdoor
performances or from a practice of popular musicians to take a few steps during these
interludes. The first references to pasacalles appear in Spanish literature in about 1605; in
certain contexts the term seems to have been used interchangeably with PASEO.

The term was soon exported to France and Italy, at first, again, to allude to ritornellos (or
riprese) improvised between song strophes. As with the chaconne, the earliest written
examples are found in Italy in alfabeto (chord) guitar tablatures, and take the form of brief,
rhythmic chord progressions outlining a cadential formula, most commonly I–IV–V–I or an
elaboration of it (ex.1a). The progressions usually appear in a range of keys, rhythms and
strumming patterns, and in duple as well as triple time; their purpose appears to be
primarily pedagogical. In Italy ‘passacaglio’ was most often used to refer to a single
statement of a chord scheme, and the plural ‘passacagli’ for a succession or collection of
more than one statement; but both terms, as well as the feminine passacaglia and its plural
passacaglie, as well as variants like passagallo, passagalli, passachaglie and numerous
other spellings, were used with little distinction throughout the century.

Ex.1 Passacaglia bass patterns (all transposed to D and reduced to equivalent note values)

To hear this example please click here

2. Italy from 1627.

No examples of notated compositions entitled passacagli (or one of its variants) other than
the guitar-strumming formulae can be dated before 1627, when Frescobaldi published a
Partite sopra passacagli for keyboard, along with a Partite sopra la ciaccona. It is not clear
whether he should be credited with the creation of the passacaglia as an independent
musical genre (as opposed to an improvised ritornello for another composition), but the
1627 set contains many of the characteristics of the numerous passacaglias for all kinds of
instrumental and vocal combinations that appeared in subsequent years. The newer
passacaglias are typically in the form of continuous (linked) variations over a bass that may
itself be subject to considerable variation. The old I–IV–V–I strumming formula is expanded
into innumerable variants, often in the form of elaborations of a descending tetrachord bass
(e.g. i–v6–iv76–V), usually with the metrical phrase remaining as four groups of three beats
(ex.1b). Chromatic intermediary steps are frequent, as are other digressions, as well as
ascending versions (e.g. i–VII6–i6–iv–V). The earlier notion of the passacaglia as an
improvised ritornello, sometimes on a specified bass, survived for some time, and is
encountered, for example, in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (1642). No doubt
connected with this practice is a continuing tradition of presenting sets of passacaglias for
the guitar in a full range of modes or keys, both major and minor, thus providing the player
with models and exercises for improvising preludes and interludes of arbitrary length. A
similar purpose may have been intended for a collection of 44 anonymous and untitled
variation sets for keyboard on descending bass patterns (in I-Rvat Chigi Q IV 27, a
manuscript probably associated with Frescobaldi and his pupils). The pieces are ordered by
key, ascending by step from C, and include sets in both duple and triple time; those in triple
time closely resemble Frescobaldi’s passacaglias. Improvised guitar interludes continued to
be called ‘passagalli’ in the folk music of some areas of Italy into the 19th century (Hudson,
1981, p.281).

In its new guise as an independent variation chain, the passacaglia shared many features
with the chaconne, including the linking of variations, cadential articulation and the use of
triple metre. Yet Frescobaldi’s passacaglias also show some distinctions (not necessarily in
every instance), such as a less exuberant, more restrained character, slower tempo, minor
rather than major key, smoother, often conjunct, melodic motion and more frequent
dissonant suspensions on downbeats. The similarities, differences and ambiguities
between the passacaglia and the chaconne are explored to the fullest in Frescobaldi’s
extraordinary Cento partite sopra passacaglie (1637), with its alternating sections marked
‘passacaglie’ and ‘ciaccona’, and sometimes a gradual, subtle metamorphosis from one
into the other (see Silbiger, 1996).

Some of these distinctions between the two genres continued to be present in the works of
later composers in Italy and elsewhere, particularly when a chaconne and a passacaglia
appear side by side or in the same collection; however, when one or the other appears by
itself, the distinctive features may be less evident or altogether absent (for Italian
composers who published such chaconne-passacaglia pairs, see CHACONNE, §2).
Composers such as Bernardo Storace also followed in Frescobaldi’s footsteps by shifting
key, mode and metre in some of their passacaglias.

In vocal settings, Italian passacaglias were sometimes interrupted by recitatives (e.g.

Frescobaldi’s Così mi disprezzate, 1630). Sections that resemble a passacaglia without
being identified as such are found in operas, cantatas and sacred works. However, the
present-day tendency to regard any lament with a descending tetrachord bass as a
passacaglia does not appear to have historical precedence unless the piece also shows
other genre markings. By the beginning of the 18th century the passacaglia was rapidly
losing ground in Italy, but it continued to flourish in France, Germany and elsewhere for
some time.

3. Later history in Spain.

In Spain an active and artistically significant passacaglia tradition survived independently of
the chaconne; it remained rooted in the old ritornello practice and was relatively unaffected
by the passacaglia developments in Italy and France. Like the early strumming exercises,
the later passacaglias continued to be presented in sets covering a full range of commonly
used keys, in major as well as minor modes and in duple as well as triple metre. The
passacaglias of Francisco Guerau (1694), Antonio de Santa Cruz (c1700) and Santiago de
Murcia (1732) were not simple chord formulae, however, but extended variation sets that
took full advantage of the guitar’s technical and expressive possibilities. Very similar
passacaglias can be found in the contemporary keyboard repertory, including some
wonderful examples by Cabanilles.

After Santiago de Murcia’s Passacalles y obras (1732) the passacaglia vanished from the
Spanish written tradition. The term ‘passacalle’ continued to be used in folk practice,
however, to refer to instrumental preludes and interludes during dancing (for example for
the seguidillas in La Mancha; see Russell, 1995, p.88) as well as to music accompanying
actual dances (for example for stick dances in Castille; Russell, 80). In some areas of Latin
America guitar ritornellos for popular dance music are still called ‘passacalles’ (Hudson,
1981, pp.280–81).

4. France.
In France the Hispanic-Italian passacaglia, like the chaconne, was transformed during the
mid-17th century into a distinctive native genre, although before that the genre had already
had some impact as an exotic Spanish import. A ‘passacalle’ (in the earlier sense of
ritornello) occurs in an air to a Spanish text by De Bailly (1614), and in 1626 the Spanish
expatriate Luis de Briçeño published in Paris a guitar method that included in chord
tablature brief chaconnes and passacaglias similar to the early Italian examples. During the
1640s the promotion of Italian music and musicians by Cardinal Mazarin brought wider
familiarity with the two genres in their newer incarnations. A harpsichord passacaglia by
Luigi Rossi (who visited Paris in 1646 and whose Orfeo was performed there the following
year) enjoyed wide manuscript circulation. Francesco Corbetta, who settled in Paris around
1648 and became guitar teacher to the future Louis XIV, was perhaps the greatest Italian
guitar virtuoso of his time, and the composer of numerous chaconnes and passacaglias.

By the late 1650s the French passacaglia tradition was firmly in place, already showing
many of the characteristics that would mark the genre during the later 17th century and the
18th. Like the chaconne, the passacaglia was cultivated both in chamber music, especially
by guitarists, lutenists and keyboard players, and on the musical stage. Among the earliest
surviving examples are two passacailles for harpsichord by Louis Couperin, which are
based on ostinatos that outline descending tetrachords (ex.1c). French composers
generally seem to have favoured the chaconne over the passacaglia (see CHACONNE, §4);
Schneider (1986) lists 18 chaconnes but only five passacaglias in Lully’s theatrical
productions, for example. Nevertheless, Lully’s lengthy and impressive passacaille from
Armide (1686) became a much admired model of the genre, emulated by many, including
Purcell and J.S. Bach. According to theorists such as Brossard (1703) and Rousseau
(1767), the passacaglia was ordinarily in the minor and the chaconne in the major (‘rules’
often violated), and passacaglias were performed at more deliberate tempos than
chaconnes (18th-century reports indicate c100 beats a minute compared to c120–160 for
chaconnes; see Miehling, 1993).

A continuing favourite among French passacaglias is François Couperin’s searingly

chromatic Passacaille in B minor from his Ordre no.8 for harpsichord (1717), an extended
rondeau structure. After 1740 the passacaglia fell largely out of fashion in instrumental solo
and chamber music, but maintained a place on the musical stage throughout the final
decades of the century, albeit still far outnumbered by the chaconne.

5. Germany.
Distinct German forms of the passacaglia developed only in the later years of the 17th
century, most strikingly in solo organ music. The German organists, drawing on traditions of
cantus-firmus improvisation and ground-bass divisions, created a series of majestic
ostinato compositions, shaped by increasingly brilliant figurations. A passacaglia from well
before 1675 by J.C. Kerll (who had studied in Rome) still used the traditional descending
tetrachord as ground-bass formula (ex.1d); however, later composers such as Buxtehude
and Pachelbel introduced bass formulae of their own devising, which were treated during at
least the first part of the composition as rigorous ostinatos. These bass progressions
assume a thematic significance not present in the traditional formulae, as various
techniques borrowed from chorale improvisation were brought to bear on them. The busy
passage-work and contrapuntal density largely obliterated any dance feeling, and
relationships to the genre’s origin became increasingly tenuous. Such is the case in the
most famous passacaglia of this tradition, J.S. Bach’s Passacaglia in C minor (bwv582),
which concludes with a lengthy fugue on its ostinato subject (possibly derived from a short
passacaglia in an organ mass of 1687 by André Raison).

Passacaglias written during the same period for instrumental ensemble more closely
followed French models or combined the French and Germanic approaches, as did those
conceived primarily for harpsichord. Bach also used the genre in some vocal works,
although not indicated as such (bwv12, later reworked into the ‘Crucifixus’ of the Mass in B
minor; bwv78). Some might argue that the opening chorus of bwv12 (like the ‘Lamento der
Freunde’ in the keyboard Capriccio bwv992) should be classified as a lament rather than as
a passacaglia, but there can be no such doubt about the magnificent opening of bwv78,
which has all the musical hallmarks of a French operatic chaconne/passacaglia number;
indeed, the passacaglia from Lully’s Armide may have been its direct source of inspiration.

6. England.
Pieces called ‘passacaglia’ or ‘passacaille’ are rarely encountered in English sources;
compositions that might have been given such titles on the Continent are usually
designated ‘chaconne’ or ‘ground’. A notable exception is the passacaille ‘How happy the
Lover’ in Purcell’s King Arthur (1691). With its alternating instrumental, solo and vocal
sections, this seems to be modelled on the passacaglia in Lully’s Armide (to which there
also is a textual reference).

7. After 1800.
When 19th- and 20th-century composers returned to writing passacaglias, they found their
models in a handful of ‘rediscovered’ pieces by the German masters, especially Bach’s
Passacaglia for organ and perhaps also the Passacaglia from Handel’s Suite no.7 in G
minor, works deserving of their canonic status, but atypical of the former mainstream genre
traditions (Handel’s passacaglia was in fact in duple metre). From Bach’s passacaglia they
took what now became the defining feature: the ostinato bass. The theme-and-variation
idea, often incidental to earlier passacaglias (if present at all) became central to the revived
genres. As with Bach, the ostinato theme is usually stated at the outset in bare form and in
a low register. The association of the passacaglia with Bach and with the organ also
contributed to a mood of gravity; most 19th- and 20th-century examples call for a slowish
tempo. Some writers attempted to define a distinction between the passacaglia and the
chaconne based primarily on the examples by Bach, but no consensus was ever reached
and for the most part the terms continued to be used interchangebly. For a more detailed
discussion of the modern revival of the chaconne and passacaglia, see CHACONNE, §7.

Bibliography
L. Stein: ‘The Passacaglia in the Twentieth Century’, ML, xl (1959), 150–53

F. Mathiassen: ‘Jeppesen’s Passacaglia’, Natalicia musicologica Knud Jeppesen septuagenario

collegis oblata, ed. B. Hjelmborg and S. Sørenson (Copenhagen, 1962), 293–308

M. Schuler: ‘Zur Frühgeschichte der Passacaglia’, Mf, xvi (1963), 121–26

T. Walker: ‘Ciaccona and Passacaglia: Remarks on their Origin and Early History’, JAMS, xxi
(1968), 300–20

D.D. Handel: The Contemporary Passacaglia (diss., U. of Rochester, 1969)

D.D. Handel: ‘Britten’s Use of the Passacaglia’, Tempo no.92 (1970), 2–6

R. Hudson: ‘Further Remarks on the Passacaglia and Ciaccona’, JAMS, xxiii (1970), 302–14

R. Hudson: ‘The Ripresa, the Ritornello, and the Passacaglia’, JAMS, xxiv (1971), 364–94

R. Hudson: Passacaglio and Ciaccona: from Guitar Music to Italian Keyboard Variations in the
17th Century (Ann Arbor, 1981)

N.D. Pennington: The Spanish Baroque Guitar with a Transcription of De Murcia’s ‘Passacalles y
obras’ (Ann Arbor, 1981)

R. Hudson: The Folia, the Saraband, the Passacaglia, and the Chaconne, MSD, xxxv (1982)

H. Schneider: ‘Chaconne und Passacaille bei Lully’, Studi corelliani IV: Fusignano 1986, 319–34

H. Pimmer: Die süddeutsch-österreichische Chaconne und Passacaglia 1670–1770 (Munich,

1992)

R. Harris-Warrick: ‘Interpreting Pendulum Markings for French Baroque Dances’, Historical

Performance, vi (1993), 9–22

C.H. Russell: Santiago de Murcia’s Códice Saldivar no.4: a Treasure of Secular Guitar Music from
Baroque Mexico, i (Urbana, IL, 1995)

A. Silbiger: ‘Passacaglia and Ciaccona: Genre Pairing and Ambiguity from Frescobaldi to
Couperin’, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, ii/1 (1996) 〈www.sscm-jscm.org〉

M. Zenck: ‘Reinterpreting Bach in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, The Cambridge
Companion to Bach, ed. J. Butt (Cambridge, 1997), 226–50

J. Schwartz: ‘The Passacaille in Lully's Armide: Phrase Structure in the Choreography and the
 Music’, EMc, xxvi (1998), 300–320

For further bibliography see CHACONNE and OSTINATO.

Alexander Silbiger

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