There are many YouTube performances of these two beautiful pieces of classical music for piano—Passacaglia by Händel and Halvorsen, and Mariage d’Amour by Paul de Senneville. They’re usually played at a faster tempo, but I prefer a slower version, especially when performed by the two classical guitarists I recently discovered and posted—Passacaglia by Boris Björn Bagger and Mariage d’Amour by Iva Kosić.
Passacaglia was written by the great German-British Baroque composer George Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) HWV 432, and later adapted by Norwegian composer, conductor, violinist Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935).
Paul de Senneville (1933–2023) composed Mariage d’Amour. It was arranged by George Davidson and performed by Richard Clayderman, who, the Guinness Book of World Records described as, “the most successful pianist in the world“.
I listened to many fine pianists on YouTube playing these beautiful pieces. Danish pianist and composer Jacob’s Piano plays Passacaglia at the same speed as Boris Björn Bagger on guitar. But Pianist Daisy plays Passacaglia a bit softer and slower, which creates a finer effect.
Jacob’s Piano plays Mariage d’Amour in a similar manner. Both musicians use tempo rubato (stolen time), a musical technique that involves the subtle alteration of tempo for expressive purposes. For me, it enhanced the emotional response to the music.
Jacob Ladegaard from Copenhagen, Denmark, aka Jacob’s Piano, pointed out that Mariage d’Amour had been mistakenly titled and uploaded as Chopin’s Spring Waltz by someone on YouTube. It reached around 25M views before it was taken down. He said that Chopin never wrote such a piece. You can read about it here: Did Chopin ever write a Spring Waltz?
Related: Boris Björn Bagger plays the well-known piano piece Passacaglia by Händel & Halvorsen on guitar and Iva Kosić performs the well-known piano piece Mariage d’Amour by Paul de Senneville on guitar.
I later found a young Indonesian musician, Amy Evelyn (Amy Tapping), playing Passacaglia and Mariage d’Amour on a double neck electric guitar using a two-handed tapping technique. Impressive!
To see other inspiring artists featured on The Uncarved Blog, scroll through the Archive of the ‘Music’ Category.
— Written and compiled (citing sources) by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
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