Chaconne and Passacaglia
Harvard defines chaconne as "a continuous variation form of the Baroque, similar to the passacaglia, based on the chord progression of a late 16th-century dance imported into Spain and Italy from Latin America." It usually appears in triple meter and in a major key, and uses a I--V--IV--V progression. Chaconnes were first written for Spanish guitar books; variations for keyboard appeared in 1627.
French chaconnes tended to be more "sedate than its southern [Spanish] counter-part." It was often presented "en rondeau" with an A section that returned "as a refrain after couplets that may modulate or alter refrain material." Suite compositions for chamber group and harpsichord often included this French chaconne.
"By the late 17th century, instrumental chaconnes on both the variation and rondeau schemes were popular in England, Germany, and Austria," becoming obscure after about 1750. There is no "consistent difference" between a chaconne and a passacaglia, "except that the chaconne was more frequently in major."
Passacaglia is defined as "a continuous variation form, principally of the Baroque, whose four-bar basso ostinato formulas originally derived from ritornellos to early 17th-century songs." They were typically played on guitar between stanzas or at the end of a song, "where they were repeated many times, probably with improvised variations." It is probably of Spanish invention and is quite similar to a chaconne, though it differs in that it tended to be in a minor key, following a I--IV--V or I--IV--V--I pattern.
The variants in a passacaglia "fell within limited set of formulas," one of which used a descending tetrachord common to "so many opera laments but appearing as well in pieces titled passacaglia." The form rarely appeared after the mid-18th century before becoming the framework for atonal or serial pieces in the 20th century.
Homophony, Monophony, Polyphony
Homophony is defined in Harvard as "music in which melodic interest is concentrated in one voice or part that is provided with a subordinate accompaniment." It is used in reference to melody + accompaniment textures, or homorhythmic, which is "characterized by the same of very similar rhythm in all parts making up a musical texture."
Monophony is defined as "music consisting of a single line or melody without an accompaniment that is regarded as part of the work itself." In this way it distinguished itself from polyphony or homophony, and is descriptive of most folk song, which, however, "may often be sung with improvised accompaniment."
Polyphony describes "music that simultaneously combines several lines." Specifically, it involves several lines that retain some sort of identity. When used to describe music of a period, the term can be synonymous with "counterpoint" and "contrapuntal;" this is its usual context.
Polyphony and homophony can be difficult to differentiate, primarily because it is difficult to determine exactly what is polyphonic. A "homophonic" 4-part hymn is certainly polyphonic compared to an a capella folk song. Additionally, what may not be polyphonic to one music culture may be to another.
Suite
A suite is "a series of disparate instrumental movements with some element of unity, most often to be performed as a single work." Each movement is typically short and contrasting, and may have nothing more in common with any other than key and origins. The solo suite gained a modicum of established dance pattern in the Baroque with the core "allemande"-"courante"-"sarabande"-"gigue" order, but even this was flexible.
The birth of the "suite" was prior to 1630, where two or three contrasting dances were grouped, often thematically. These dances (for instrumental ensemble and for lute) "were published with varying contents, generally grouped by key, sometimes without overt thematic connections." Paul Peuerl was the first composer to use a set pattern, but this was more the exception rather than the rule.
Of the almost 40 suites (or "partitas") that Bach wrote for solo instruments, a little over half followed the pattern prelude-allemande-courante-sarabande-optional-gigue pattern, giving rise to the notion that "the Baroque suite was by definition the sequence A-C-S-G." However, the form was still "less an architecturally conceived whole than a series of separate units." Some of the first A-C-S groupings are found in French lute music around 1630 in a volume by Fran¨ois de Chancy; some Italian collections follow this pattern as well. German lutenists added the gigue to this form.
"The solo suite is principally a harpsichord genre." Bach, the most significant composer of the form in Germany, was also the last in the A-C-S-G tradition; the suites of many other composers ignore it, many instead imitating the orchestral suite. In France "the suite was more an ordering of pieces for publication or performance than a compositional form," and they frequently represented the works of several composers. "Beginning with Couperin, harpsichord suites (his term was ordre) increasingly contained character pieces rather than dances, and no consistent organizational pattern emerged except for a tendency to include programmatic sets of pieces as subgroups." English harpsichord composers tended to follow Bach's pattern, but "here also the gigue was not to be counted on." Handel mixed the patterns of all three national styles. Italian pieces were "usually grouped together by type, not as multimovement forms." When a solo suite does appear (infrequently), it follows the pattern of suites for lute or harpsichord.
The idea of excerpting pieces from stage works, especially popular with French ballets and Lully's in particular, emerged in the latter half of the 17th century. Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks are the most famous works of this style. These individual dance pieces shared the same key, but came in no particular order..
The chamber suites developed differently from the solo or orchestral suite. The common practice was to follow the sonata da camera form rather than the A-C-S-G pattern as for solo suites. The A-C-S succession does appear in English chamber suites, but this too is infrequent. In Germany it did "gain a foothold until the 1680s." French works tended to emulate orchestral suites, though they sometimes replaced the overture with a prelude for bass. "In Italy, the sonata da camera reigned superior and did not admit suites of other sorts.
The rise of the sonata put the dance suite to sleep for a while, though the divertimento was an aggregate that provided the "same looseness of definition as the Baroque suite without the strong attachment to dance forms." Sometimes they were collections of movements that were like multimovement, nationalistic tone poems. By the middle of the 19th century "the extract-suite regained nearly the popularity it had enjoyed in the 17th century."