The ''Passacaglia on DSCH'' is a large-scale composition for solo piano by the British composer

Ronald Stevenson Ronald James Stevenson (6 March 1928 – 28 March 2015) was a Scottish composer, pianist, and writer about music. Biography The son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother, Stevenson was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1928. He studied at the ...

. It was composed between 24 December 1960 and 18 May 1962, except for two sections added on the day of the first performance on 10 December 1963. The composer presented a copy of the score to

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throug ...

, its dedicatee, at the 1962

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fe ...

Description of form

The work takes the principle of the

passacaglia The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin The ter ...

chaconne A chaconne (; ; es, chacona, links=no; it, ciaccona, links=no, ; earlier English: ''chacony'') is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short rep ...

– namely, strict variations on an unchanging subject, usually a

ground bass In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...

, 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 of

'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. It is extraordinary in its scope, the range of its reference to historic events, and the musical influences absorbed. The work includes a

sonata form Sonata form (also ''sonata-allegro form'' or ''first movement form'') is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle ...

first section, a suite of

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

s (incorporating a

sarabande The sarabande (from es, zarabanda) is a dance in triple metre, or the music written for such a dance. History The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with castanets. A dance cal ...

jig The jig ( ga, port, gd, port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It is most associated with Irish music and dance. It first gained popularity in 16th-century Ireland and parts of ...

minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accompa ...

gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. Ac ...

and

polonaise The polonaise (, ; pl, polonez ) is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meani ...

), a transcription of a Scottish

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

Pibroch Pibroch, or is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations. Strictly meaning "piping" in Scottish Gaelic, has for some f ...

, a section entitled ''To Emergent Africa'' involving percussive effects directly on the piano strings, a section resonating to

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

's slogan 'Peace, Bread and the Land'. The penultimate section is a huge triple

fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...

over the ground bass, the first fugue on a 12-note subject derived from the bass, the second combines the

DSCH motif DSCH is a musical motif used by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes ''D, E-flat, C, B natural'', or in German musical notation ''D, Es, C, H'' ( ...

with the

BACH motif In music, the BACH motif is the motif, a succession of notes important or characteristic to a piece, ''B flat, A, C, B natural''. In German musical nomenclature, in which the note ''B natural'' is named ''H'' and the ''B flat'' named ...

(B-flat, A, C, B), and the third, on the '' Dies Irae'' chant, is inscribed ''In memoriam the six million'' (a reference to the victims of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

). 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 The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

'doubles', with the basic unit of metre halving with each variation.

Structure

I Pars Prima

#Sonata Allegro #Waltz In Rondo-Form #Episode 1. Presto #Suite: ##Prelude. ##Sarabande. ##Jig. ##Sarabande. ##Minuet. ##Jig. ##Gavotte. ##Polonaise. #Pibroch (Lament For Children). #Episode 2. Arabesque Variations. #Nocturne.

II Pars Altera

#Reverie-Fantasy. #Fanfare. #Forebodings. Alarm. #Glimpse Of A War Vision. #Variations On 'Peace, Bread And The Land' (1917). #Symphonic March. #Episode 3. Volante Scherzoso. #Fandango. #Pedal Point. 'To Emergent Africa'. #Central Episode. Etudes. #Variations In C Minor

III Pars Tertia

#Adagio. Tribute To Bach #Triple Fugue Over Ground Bass: ##Subject 1. Andamento ##Subject 2. Bach. ##Subject 3. Dies Irae #Final Variations On A Theme Derived From Ground (Adagissimo Barocco).

Performances and recordings

The composer gave the world premiere at the University of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

on 10 December 1963. In 1964 he recorded the work on a Petrof 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 Appian APR 5650 CD.) Stevenson also gave the work its European public premiere on 6 June 1966 as part of the Handel Festival in Halle then part of the

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. The first broadcast was given by

John Ogdon John Andrew Howard Ogdon (27 January 1937 – 1 August 1989) was an English pianist and composer. Biography Career Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended the Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Ro ...

on the

BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...

on 22 May 1966, and Ogdon went on to give the British public premiere at the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival Th ...

on 14 June 1966. He subsequently made a recording for

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

on two LP discs. The work has been recorded on CD by Raymond Clarke, Murray McLachlan and James Willshire as well as by the composer. It was streamed live by

Igor Levit Igor Levit (russian: link=no, Игорь Левит; born 10 March 1987) is a Russian-German pianist who focuses on the works of Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt. He is also a professor at the Musikhochschule Hannover. He lives in Berlin. Biography B ...

on 20 April 2020 as one of his '' Hauskonzerte'' and subsequently released as part of his album "On DSCH", released on 10 September 2021 (Sony Classical).

Publication

The ''Passacaglia'' was published for sale by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

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.

References

Gasser, M., "Ronald Stevenson, Composer-Pianist : An Exegetical Critique from a Pianistic Perspective" (Edith Cowan University Press, Western Australia, 2013)
*Raymond Clarke, recording notes for Stevenson: ''Passacaglia on DSCH''. Raymond Clarke (piano). Marco Polo 8.223545.
Chris Walton, "Composer in Interview: Ronald Stevenson - a Scot in 'emergent Africa'"
*''Ronald Stevenson: A Musical Biography'' by Malcolm MacDonald (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, 1989) *''Ronald Stevenson: The Man and his Music - A Symposium'' edited by Colin Scott-Sutherland with a foreword by Yehudi Menuhin (London, 2005) {{ISBN, 0-907689-40-X Compositions by Ronald Stevenson 1963 compositions Compositions for solo piano Variations Music with dedications Composer tributes (classical music)