A Passacaglia
| OU might write a Passacaglia on any theme you like, from God Save the King to Pop Goes the Weasel. All you would have to do, according to the Harmony Text-books, would be to write the tune again and again in the bass, while inventing variations in the parts above it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Students of harmony, try it and see whether you can do as well as Gordon Jacob, whose "Passacaglia on a Well-known Theme" was played by Gil Dech and the 4YA Concert Orchestra. The well-known theme? Oranges and Lemons! But in this tricky version, the old nursery-rhyme, plodding along in the bass, is decorated with such profusion of harmonic and contrapuntal invention that it sounds like a tinsel Christmas tree-and a very charming one at that.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19441229.2.12.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 288, 29 December 1944, Page 6
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132A Passacaglia New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 288, 29 December 1944, Page 6
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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