Repeating bass line

[Dave2002]

The Concerto in G minor F. XI No. 21 by Vivaldi has a very repetitive bass line in the first movement, almost, but not quite, to the end. Is there a name for this kind of device, and are there many other examples of this kind of writing? Perhaps this is just an extreme example of ostinato - which I may have taken in the past to refer to rhythmic ostinato. I think for me what struck me as odd was that it is not just a section, but virtually the whole movement which has this pattern.

You can hear it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vER5...ature=youtu.be and check the score at IMSLP if so inclined.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Passacaglia? Ground bass? Chaconne?
(See Mr H Purcell for further details)

[Dave2002]

Passacaglia? Ground bass?
(See Mr H Purcell for further details)

Probably not as incessant as the example I've given - which moves quite quickly. Most of the passacaglias I have heard move slowly, though I'm not sure if that is a requirement.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's always an ostinato, regardless of number and speed of repetitions, I would say.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's always an ostinato, regardless of number and speed of repetitions, I would say.

Yes - though I'd call it a Ground Bass rather than an ostinato (purely personal/eccentric usage: an "ostinato" suggests something shorter to me, like a Riff). Dave is right, though - Passacaglias and Chaconnes are slower in tempo - but whereas Chaconnes are always in triple time, Passacaglias needn't be (Webern's isn't, for example).

[Dave2002]

Yes - though I'd call it a Ground Bass rather than an ostinato (purely personal/eccentric usage: an "ostinato" suggests something shorter to me, like a Riff). Dave is right, though - Passacaglias and Chaconnes are slower in tempo - but whereas Chaconnes are always in triple time, Passacaglias needn't be (Webern's isn't, for example).

I recall Ground Bass being the term from music lessons yonks ago. I assumed that often these were Chaconnes or Pasacaglias, but maybe there are others. Are there lots of works with Ground Bass? I mean in the current repertoire - there are probably thousands lying covered with dust in libraries.

The Vivaldi concerto I mentioned really did strike me as different, compared with Dido's Lament etc.

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/purcell/guides/trevor-pinnock-didos-lament/

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - there are/were certain other aspects of Passacaglias & Chaconnes that implied a specific kind of Ground Bass. Lots of Renaissance & Baroque Variations on a Ground: there's famous quick one in one of Purcell's stage works (the title of which I've been trying to remember all day so I can find a Youtube link ). Pachelbel's Canon is probably the most famous (although that's a Chaconne in all but name - slow-ish triple time, with a chord sequence [not just the Bass] constantly repeated whilst things heat up and then cool down in the "melody voices").

But you're right - quick-tempoed works on a Ground Bass are rarer than their slower cousins.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry to be pedantic, but is there any difference between a Passacaglia and a Ricercar? Or are these alternative categorisations?

[vinteuil]

Sorry to be pedantic, but is there any difference between a Passacaglia and a Ricercar? Or are these alternative categorisations?

... much debated.

Britannica advises :

"Passacaglia, (Italian, from Spanish passacalle, or pasacalle: “street song”), musical form of continuous variation in 3/4 time; and a courtly dance. The dance, as it first appeared in 17th-century Spain, was of unsavoury reputation and possibly quite fiery. In the French theatre of the 17th and 18th centuries it was a dance of imposing majesty. Little is known of the actual dance movements and steps. Musically the passacaglia is nearly indistinguishable from the contemporary chaconne; contemporary writers called the passacaglia a graver dance, however, and noted that it was identified more frequently with male dancers.

Both the passacaglia and the chaconne gave rise to musical forms. Baroque composers used the two names indiscriminately, writing rondeaux (pieces with recurring refrains) as well as variation forms under both titles (see chaconne). Musicians have had difficulty defining the two forms. One opinion is that the chaconne is a series of variations over a short repeated theme (ostinato) in the bass—a basso ostinato, or ground bass—whereas in the passacaglia the ostinato may appear in any voice. Another view is that the passacaglia uses an ostinato normally in the bass but possibly in any voice; but the chaconne consists of variations over a harmonic ground, like a jazz riff, a series of chords that underlies the variations. Such a series may imply a constant bass line (of the chords), but merely as a component of the harmony."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry to be pedantic, but is there any difference between a Passacaglia and a Ricercar? Or are these alternative categorisations?

A "ricercare" is more akin to a Fugue, isn't it?

[Dave2002]

Re msg 9

>>>> ... I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Indeed - seems to be getting even muddier now, with the clarification!

Thanks anyway.

Now on to ricercar/ricercare ...

[Serial_Apologist]

... much debated.

Britannica advises :

"Passacaglia, (Italian, from Spanish passacalle, or pasacalle: “street song”), musical form of continuous variation in 3/4 time; and a courtly dance. The dance, as it first appeared in 17th-century Spain, was of unsavoury reputation and possibly quite fiery. In the French theatre of the 17th and 18th centuries it was a dance of imposing majesty. Little is known of the actual dance movements and steps. Musically the passacaglia is nearly indistinguishable from the contemporary chaconne; contemporary writers called the passacaglia a graver dance, however, and noted that it was identified more frequently with male dancers.

Both the passacaglia and the chaconne gave rise to musical forms. Baroque composers used the two names indiscriminately, writing rondeaux (pieces with recurring refrains) as well as variation forms under both titles (see chaconne). Musicians have had difficulty defining the two forms. One opinion is that the chaconne is a series of variations over a short repeated theme (ostinato) in the bass—a basso ostinato, or ground bass—whereas in the passacaglia the ostinato may appear in any voice. Another view is that the passacaglia uses an ostinato normally in the bass but possibly in any voice; but the chaconne consists of variations over a harmonic ground, like a jazz riff, a series of chords that underlies the variations. Such a series may imply a constant bass line (of the chords), but merely as a component of the harmony."

Thanks vints.

My 1959 Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music states:

Ricercare (It. 'To seek out'; cf. Eng. 'Research' and Fr. 'Recherché'). In music this word is used as a noun and applied (a; 16th to 18th cs.) to an elaborate contrapuntal composition in fugal or canonic style, and (b) more loosely to any sort of a prelude (usually, however, more or less contrapuntal in style).

But I would expect this definition to be reductionist.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think that, whilst a Ricercare (and/or a Fugue for that matter) might be composed over a Ground Bass, should the composer be so inclined, it doesn't have to be (and most aren't) - whereas a Passacaglia (and/or a Chaconne for that matter) without a Ground Bass isn't a Passacaglia/Chaconne. (The Ground Bass is the principal feature of the Passacaglia/Chaconne - it's an optional extra [chaconne a son gout] of the Ricercare/Fugue.)

[jayne lee wilson]

Wonder which of these classical forms this adumbrates....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sB3Fjw3Uvc

[Serial_Apologist]

Wonder which of these classical forms this adumbrates....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sB3Fjw3Uvc

If you re-arranged it for piano and classical baritone voice, with those modal harmonies it could almost be Vaughan Williams, non?