Okay, okay, okay! I get it!

Now, explain to me the music theory of the
D major section of the Bach Chaconne! Say
the first few notes of that section after the
opening open D string and the D an octave
higher on the A string; or if want to avoid
the open string, play the D of the open D string
on the G string and the other D on the D string.

Then what is the role
of the notes repeated three times, and those
triplets repeated several times? These
triplets are insistent? Heifetz played them
this way, but not all violinists do!

Then what is
the connection from the last few bars
of the D major section and the first few bars of
the following D minor section? Or the last of
the D major is the climax of the piece, and
the start of the D minor is a catharsis?

For more, at the beginning of the second to
last bar of the D major section, there is a chord
the first G above middle C, the next G up,
and the B above that. The notes are quarter
notes except the upper G is an eighth note
and changes to the D just below, also an
eighth note. Well, what is the role of the
change from that G to that D? Some violinists
emphasize that change from the G to the D
a fourth below, that is, make the D easy to
hear and the fall something dramatic, say,
as some kind of resignation. What's
going on here? What likely did Bach have in
mind?

Rostropovich, with his recording with von Karajan
of the Dvorak concerto, made something really
special at the beginning of the second movement:
He has some depiction of remembered pathos. So, how'd he
(Dvorak and/or Rostropovich) do that?

From Rostropovich I hear
emphasis with vibrato, volume, and tone color
and careful timing, phrasing. It's passionate music.
What's going on? It sounds a little like
some abstraction of some speech with pathos.

Maybe easier is the Prelude of the first
Bach piece for solo cello and, there, the rising
chromatic passage to what is apparently the
climax of that piece. So, what else is going
on there just besides that rising chromatic
passage?

Then there is the cello solo early in the
first act of Die Walkure, maybe representing
the girl? How to write a cello solo that sounds
like a compassionate girl?

For some more, there is the duet, "Presentation
of the Rose" in Der Rosenkavalier with Barbara
Bonney and Anne Sophie von Otter as at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuS337uc-4Y

Some parts of the duet with the two voices are
just marvelous, and I'm not understanding how
Strauss did that. What's going on? How'd he do it?

For more, there's too much going on in Ein
Heldenleben, but I'd be happy knowing a little
about what Strauss did there, even how the
girl, that is, the violin solo, worked, or even just
how Stauss made the girl so comforting in the
last section.

Are such issues what you have in mind as
music theory?

How'd I get into such questions? One night
on a radio I heard Beethoven's 7th symphony,
and it seemed easy to like, e.g., the dance.
Occasionally Dad gave me some money, and I
bought some recordings, Vivaldi through
Rachmaninoff. Then I was a grad student
in math at Indiana University in a dorm next
to the music building, and a Stern protege
put his old Italian violin under my left
chin, gave me a lesson, and I took a violin
course, starting with how to tune the thing.
I learned the music theory of perfect fifths,
that is, three times the frequency of the lower
open string is the same frequency as two times
the frequency of the upper open string, and the beats
between those two can be used to tune to perfect
fifths. Not long after making it in some form
through much of the Chaconne I got too busy
to continue on. So, I like the music but don't
fully understand just why. Music theory
has an explanation?