Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor

One of the greatest of all J.S. Bach’s organ works is announced by a sturdily contoured and teasingly inscrutable 15 notes allotted solely to the feet, a piece built on that favourite Baroque warhorse of variations that evolve over a repeating bass line. It’s a technique he further consummated in the Goldberg Variations for harpsichord and the great “Chaconne” that crowns the Partita for solo violin BWV 1004. Astonishingly, the Passacaglia is a work of Bach’s youth, likely composed when he was in his early twenties. Then again, perhaps it’s unsurprising; there’s something headstrong about the music’s unstoppable drive and ambition. The theme probably derives some of its DNA from one by the French composer André Raison, but Bach extends it to eight bars, opening up a spaciousness that generates a tsunami of surging ingenuity, enlivening 20 variations capped by a carefully wrought fugue. Derived from the recurring bass line, the latter maintains Bach’s waste-not-want-not approach to the contrapuntal possibilities of the theme. A few bars before the end, a bold chord commands a pause that further ratchets up the tension—before the music powers through to a thrilling and triumphant conclusion.