In 1720, Johann Sebastian Bach returned from a journey with fellow musicians and his employer Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen to find that his wife, Anna Barbara, had died and was buried while he was away. Specifics are unknown, but Santa Barbara, Calif.-based author Joseph C. Mastroianni thinks Bach wrote the incomparable "Chaconne" after he received news of his beloved's untimely demise.

"If you listen, you can hear the love, the passion and the anger," said Mastroianni, who built his book "Chaconne the Novel" around the music.