In these weeks while witnessing the growing alarm and loss of life in Italy, Spain, France, the UK and our other neighbours, it is hard to know how to deal with and express our mixed feelings — of grief, solidarity with the suffering families and communities, and gratitude for those who are managing healthcare and solving problems. This crisis that knows no state borders or political allegiance reminds us of how interconnected our European society and culture is today — and has been since the Renaissance. Music provides countless examples of art that relates directly to sadness or despair or mourning for lives lost (for a famous case, see the next post). But for today we choose instead some interconnected dance music as another way to remember and honour our European neighbours. Music-making has never been as widely shared internationally as it is today (at least before social distancing suspended the giving of live concerts): in these four examples alone we have Spanish music performed by a Croatian ensemble, French music by Germans, Italian music by Spaniards, and English music by Italians.

The chaconne (chacona in Spanish, ciacona in Italian) is a lively dance-song in triple metre that originated in Spain or the New World in the sixteenth century. It became particularly popular in the seventeenth century, across Europe, in purely instrumental form: its common characteristic is a repetitive phrase structure that is the basis for harmonic and melodic variations.

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