Bach: Chaconnes BWV 1178 & 1179 (World Premieres)

Aurélien Pontier presents a new 3-track EP dedicated to J.S. Bach including two world-premiere recordings - chaconnes BMV 1178 & 1179 originally for organ, here at the piano and one transcription made by French pianist Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) of the well-known Largo from Bach’s fifth concerto for harpsichord.

In 2025, music historian Bernd Koska authenticated two 300-year-old Bach manuscripts, finalizing a 33-year search started by colleague Peter Wollny. They show the twenty-year-old Bach still very much under the influence of his teacher Georg Böhm. Each of them is a chaconne, a form much in fashion at the time, elaborating melodic and rhythmic variations over a ground bass or basso ostinato. 

The Chaconne and Fugue in D minor BWV 1178, an astonishingly daring work, demonstrates Bach’s contrapuntal mastery and his style in writing for the organ. The Chaconne in G minor BWV 1179 is striking for both its fractured rhythms and its lyricism.