Ostinato translates in Italian as ‘obstinate’ or insistent; passacaglia derives from the Spanish phrase ‘passer la calle’, to walk down the street; Chaconne is of Latin-American origin, meaning unknown. Diverse etymologies, then, for one of the fundamental structures in Western music, and one which became the foundation of most pop musics, when the ground bass evolved into the four-bar riff. On this album Pieter-Jan Belder has assembled a collection of ostinato pieces, not necessarily chaconnes or passacailles, but all kinds of pieces that feature a certain obsessive repetition, usually on a harmonic basis. All of these pieces are in fact dances. His choice spans almost two centuries, from the simple tread of a Pass’e Mezzo by Giovanni PIcchi to the ornamented flourishes of Soler’s Fandango.
Works:
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Bach, J S: Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV1004: Chaconne
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Couperin, L: Passacaille in C
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Couperin, L: Prelude in C
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Frescobaldi: Cento Partite sopra Passacagli
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Marchand, L: Chaconne in D minor
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Muffat, Georg: Apparatus musico-organisticus
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Muffat, Georg: Passacaglia in G minor
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Picchi: Pass'e mezzo
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Purcell: A New Ground in E minor, Z. T682
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Soler, A: Fandango
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Storace, B: Ciaccona (harpsichord)
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Tomkins: Ground
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Tomkins: Ground, MB 5/39