Chaconne

According to the oldest Spanish literary sources, chaconne in its folk form was danced to a sung text, to the sound of guitar, castanets or tambourine. Full of spontaneity and a kind of madness, it fascinated court composers, first Spanish, then Italian and French. Since 1615 it has been present in the French musical repertoire as a rondo form with an ostinato-based refrain. It also gained great popularity with French dance masters as an unusually dynamic variation form based on contrasts.

The chaconne in ternary metre is performed at a moderate tempo, in a cheerful or serious, solemn or festive character. Its original compositions were intended for ballet dancers as solo shows, ballet masters and dance masters. Among the best known are Chaconne de Phaëton and Chaconne d’Arlequin, with elements of rhetoric and theatrical expression appropriate to the characters being played. At the same time, chaconne choreographies present an extremely high level of dance technique with elements of virtuosity and acrobatics. In addition to the basic step of this dance, the contretemps de chaconne, all steps from the repertoire of the Belle danse technique are present. By the end of the 18th century, the composition, the chaconne considered a kind of small ballet, was transformed in Ballet-d’action works into a kind of Ballet-Pantomime.