from notes by Claire Jackson © 2021

extrait des notes rédigées par Claire Jackson © 2021
Français: Marie-Stella Pâris

aus dem Begleittext von Claire Jackson © 2021
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

from notes by Bryce Morrison © 2009

from notes by Ateş Orga © 2018

The challenge taken up by a great many pianists, is nonetheless immense, for this glowing masterpiece calls for dignity as well as exuberance, to subtlety of nuance and above all for a rich and beautiful sonority. A succession of three episodes, each containing 15, 10 and 5 variations on an 8 bar theme, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne is understandably among the most remarkable and popular of piano transcriptions.

More generally, Busoni, who had little sympathy with the human in music, was a figure who ‘intellectualised and sublimated emotion’ and was once described as a man of ‘cold, white fire.’ For many the embodiment of a complete musician he was, surprisingly, an Italian deeply rooted in the Teutonic worlds of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. A lighter side to his formidable nature may be detected in, for example, his Carmen Fantasy, but elsewhere he was ‘as different from a salon figure as a sparrow is to an eagle.’ For him a composer’s text was not so much sacrosanct as a blue-print from which to build castles and fashion spiritual likenesses.

from notes by Bryce Morrison © 2021

Le défi relevé par tant de pianistes n’en est pas moins immense, car ce chef-d’œuvre rayonnant appelle à la fois à la dignité et à l’exubérance, à la subtilité des nuances et surtout à une sonorité riche et harmonieuse. Une succession de trois épisodes, contenant chacun 15, 10 et 5 variations sur un thème de 8 mesures, la Chaconne de Bach-Busoni fait tout naturellement partie des transcriptions pour piano les plus remarquables et les plus populaires.

Plus généralement, Busoni, qui avait peu de sympathie pour l’humain dans la musique, était un personnage qui «intellectualisait et sublimait l’émotion». Il fut un jour décrit comme un homme de «feu blanc et glacé». Pour beaucoup, il était l’incarnation d’un musicien complet, un Italien—étonnamment—profondément enraciné dans les mondes teutoniques de Bach, Beethoven et Mozart. Un aspect plus léger de sa personnalité extraordinaire est parfois perceptible, par exemple dans sa Fantaisie sur Carmen, mais dans le reste de son oeuvre, il est «aussi différent d’un compositeur de salon qu’un moineau l’est d’un aigle». Pour lui, ce n’est pas tant le texte musical qui est sacré que sa charpente qui permet de construire des idéaux et de façonner des ressemblances spirituelles.

extrait des notes rédigées par Bryce Morrison © 2021
Français: Sophie Leguil

Bach, of course, never visited France, but that didn’t hinder him from developing a close acquaintance with the latest French styles, which were imported to Germany in print. Accordingly, at multiple removes from their popular generic origins, the dances that make up Bach’s suites utterly transform the bodily movements from which they ultimately derive to create profound abstract patterns—spiritual and intellectual choreographies, so to speak. The epoch-making ‘Ciaccona’ from Partita No 2 in D minor for solo violin, which is the suite’s fifth and final movement, comprises sixty-four variations that explore every nuance of the instrument’s capabilities while carving out an immensely compelling emotional trajectory, later described by Johannes Brahms as ‘a whole world of the deepest thoughts and the most powerful feelings’. This is the ne plus ultra of meditative intensity, yet one need look no further than the extreme self-scrutiny engaged in by Hamlet to see that it shares a common heritage with other facets of the rich culture of melancholy. As such, though Bach’s tremendous work is about as far removed from the chaconne’s boisterous roots as can be imagined, it is nonetheless a supreme contribution to the tradition.

from notes by Paul Williamson © 2019