Ciacona-anocaiC
This piece uses a modified bass theme from J.S. Bach, taken from his Passacaglia in d minor. The key is moved to c minor, and the meter is changed from 3/4 to 4/4. Actually, Bach himself borrowed the theme, presumably from a French composer living some 50 years before Bach.
The piece consists of 10 variations over this bass theme, but with a twist. After variation 5, the theme is played backwards, and everything is more modern, compared to the traditional
layout of the first 5 variations. In the last variation, both the original and the reverse version are played together, and every bar has a reference to a previous variation, all in chronological order. Bar 1 has a reference to variation 1, bar 2 to variation 2 etc.
Once I decided on the formal structure, composing was a quite fast process, and the piece was finished in less than 3 weeks.
Ciacona or chaconne is basically the same as a passacaglia, a number of variations over an fixed, repeated (ostinato) bass theme. The title is a reference to the backwards played bass line in variation 6, Anocaic is simply Ciacona backwards!
The Finale music notation program simulations (that are used for most of the excerpts), are far from perfect. I could have used recordings from an actual performance, but the simulations provide a "neutral" interpretation, and together with the score, they give a fairly relevant picture of the music in question.