- Passacaglia on DSCH
The Passacaglia on DSCH is a large-scale composition for solo piano by the British composer
Ronald Stevenson . It was composed between24 December 1960 and18 May 1962 , except for two sections added on the day of the first performance on10 December 1963 . The composer presented a copy of the score toDmitri Shostakovich , its dedicatee, at the 1962Edinburgh Festival .Description of form
The work takes the principle of
passacaglia orchaconne - namely, strict variations on an unchanging subject, usually aground bass , and applies it across a very large single-movement structure that divides into a cumulative design of many different musical styles and forms. It is based on a 13-note 'ground' derived from the musical motif "D, E-flat, C, B": the German transliteration ofDmitri Shostakovich 's initials ("D. Sch."). (Shostakovich used these four notes as a musical 'signature', for example in his Eighth String Quartet). Stevenson's work takes more than an hour and a quarter to perform and may be the longest unbroken single movement composed for piano. It is extraordinary in its scope, the range of its reference to historic events, and the musical influences absorbed. The work includes aSonata form first section, asuite ofdance s (incorporating aSarabande ,Jig ,Minuet ,Gavotte andPolonaise ), a transcription of a Scottish bagpipePibroch , a section entitled "To Emergent Africa" involving percussive effects directly on the piano strings, a section resonating toLenin 's slogan 'Peace, Bread and the Land'. The penultimate section is a huge triplefugue over the ground bass, the first fugue on a 12-note subject derived from the bass, the second combines the DSCH motif with Bach's monogram BACH (B-flat, A, C, B), and the third, on theDies Irae chant, is inscribed "In memoriam the six million" (a reference to the victims of theHolocaust ofWorld War II ). The work ends with a series of variations on a theme derived from the ground marked "Adagissimo barocco" and organized on the principle of Baroque 'doubles', with the basic unit of metre halving with each variation.Performances and recordings
The composer gave the world premiere at the University of
Cape Town on 10 December 1963. In 1964 he recorded the work on aPetrof grand piano on two LPs issued under the auspices of the Editorial Board of the University of Cape Town, in a signed edition of 100 copies. (In 2008 this performance was reissued on Apprian APR 5650.) CD Stevenson also gave the work its European public premiere on 6 June 1966 as part of the Halle Handel Festival in Halle, then part of theGerman Democratic Republic . The first broadcast was given byJohn Ogdon on theBBC Third Programme on 22 May 1966, and Ogdon went on to give the British public premiere at theAldeburgh Festival on 14 June 1966. He subsequently made a recording forEMI on two LP discs. The work has been recorded on CD byRaymond Clarke andMurray McLachlan as well as by the composer.Publication
The "Passacaglia" was published for sale by
Oxford University Press in 1967, engraved by the Polish publishers PWM. This edition is 141 pages long.In 1994 the Ronald Stevenson Society published a facsimile edition of the composer's manuscript. This edition is 191 pages long.
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