5 - Chaconnes in the Music of Adès

Summary

This chapter focuses on the chaconne and demonstrates how existing approaches to pitch in Adès’s employment of the form in Arcadiana, Concerto conciso and the Violin Concerto are enriched through an appreciation of his handling of rhythm and texture to generate larger-scale musical and dramatic structures. In the three instrumental movements examined in this chapter the pitch structure of Adès’s chaconnes undergo the usual kinds of changes expected of this variation form. Attending to only the pitch organisation does not provide a complete picture of the complexities of an Adèsian chaconne. For Adès, the repetition of the chaconne cycle provides an opportunity to superimpose independent layers of rhythmic patterns that heighten and enrich the pitch and harmonic musical transformations. The temporal implications of Adès’s chaconnes provide new insights into the processes that structure his form on the larger scale.