Passacaglia for Bernhard

[Jost Ammon <Jost.Ammon@t-online.de>]

Jim and Bob (and the list of course),

> from what I can tell, Berhard was at least working on a parellel course
> as him (sometimes) if not down-right influcenced by him.
 > Didn't Berhard also write a few peices for the stage?

Yes, I'd say Beckett did in fact down-right influence Bernhard, and Bernhard
wrote a lot for the stage, mostly pieces to be played exculsively by
Bernhard Minetti. At times you would wonder if Minetti was Bernhard and
Bernhard Minetti? But I have been totally unaware of the Gould referring
novel Loser - thank you for the hint.

As for pastorale: I looked up an even more interesting etymology the other
day when the Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays mailing list discussed "ostinato". I
thought of the passacaglia as an artform of a sort of "applied" ostinato:

The term "ostinato" derives from latin obstinatum (participle to obstinare)
which means persist or insist and refers in music to a steadily repeated
short theme or harmonic figure. A particular meaning has the term "basso
ostinato" meaning the continued repetition of a theme or an harmonic pattern
in the bass.

A particular derivate of the basso ostinato is the "Passacaglia", an italian
term deriving from spanish "pasar" - to pass by - and "calle" - lane or
alley - describing the musicians walking through the lanes, playing and
therefore having a pacelike rhythm.

In the early 17th century the theme was in a 3/4 bar and was developped into
a composition of variations, mostly built on the four-bar-repeating bass
theme.

The psychic impact of ostinato is often obtaining an ecstatic mood (well,
that's at least what I happen to experience listening to passacaglia
c-minor).

Jost