Theme and Variation Form

3/12/2017 variation form in Oxford Music Online Oxford Music Online

The Oxford Companion to Music variation form

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1. Introduction

In variation form a self­contained theme is repeated and changed in some way with each successive statement. Variations may be continuous, as in OSTINATO movements, or discrete, as in STROPHIC VARIATIONS. The number and type of variations are not fixed. As a genre, strophic theme and variations has often had a poor reputation. This is in part because its form is paratactic (a chain of separable links) and can therefore seem like a loose assemblage of small pieces without a coherent shape. However, many composers have grouped individual variations to create larger­scale musical forms and rhetorical patterns. In the hands of the greatest composers the repeated close working of a theme has often produced compelling and powerful music, but many variation sets written for popular consumption are artistically trivial. Thus variation form is unusual in furnishing both the most vacuous and some of the most profound examples of Western instrumental music.

2. Variation types

Although all musical parameters can be subjected to variation processes, the repertory is dominated by a small number of types:

(a) cantus firmus or constant melody, in which the melody remains constant while other parameters change (e.g. the second movement of Haydn's ‘Emperor’ Quartet op. 76 no. 3);

(b) constant bass or ostinato, in which the bass pattern remains constant (e.g. GROUND BASS, PASSACAGLIA, and CHACONNE);

(c) fixed harmony, in which the harmonic framework of the theme remains constant (e.g. variations on the FOLIA and the ROMANESCA, Bach's ‘Goldberg’ Variations);

(d) melodic outline, in which the melodic shape of the theme is either decorated with additional notes or replaced by a paraphrase of the original: the most common variation type in the late 18th and 19th centuries;

(e) formal outline, in which the form and phrase structure of the theme are the only elements to remain constant (e.g. Schumann's Symphonic Variations op. 13);

(f) characteristic variations, in which elements of theme are reworked in different genres and types (e.g. Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge op. 10);

(g) fantasia variations, in which all parameters can be subjected to radical change though a narrative structure may shape the work (e.g. Strauss's Don Quixote and Elgar's ‘Enigma’ Variations);

(h) serial variations, in which the note row forms the theme for the variations (e.g. the second movement of Webern's Symphony op. 21).

3. Historical overview

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.aucklandlibraries.idm.oclc.org/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e7067 1/2 3/12/2017 variation form in Oxford Music Online The technique and process of variation have been fundamental to Western music from its earliest history, but variation form derives from the practice of improvising embellishments in successive strophes of songs and dances during the 16th century. Among the earliest published examples are sets of diferencias for vihuela by Luis de Narváez (Delphín de música, 1538). As the most extended instrumental form of the period, variation developed rapidly: composers formulated new types and began to organize their sets into larger patterns. The Spanish organist Antonio de Cabezón wrote keyboard variations with cantus­firmus, fixed­bass, and melodic­outline techniques. He gave each variation a distinctive motivic profile and linked individual variations with transition passages. Cabezón's work was imitated in Italy and developed by English keyboard composers. The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book contains a conspectus of Renaissance variation forms: over 200 pieces by leading composers including Bull, Farnaby, and Byrd.

In the 17th century the development of the basso CONTINUO led to a proliferation of fixed­bass variation types, especially ostinato dances like the passacaglia and chaconne. Two distinct kinds of melodic variation also flourished in the 17th and early 18th centuries. CHORALE VARIATIONS using cantus­firmus techniques were widely cultivated in Germany, while in France the most common type of variation was the double (see DOUBLE, 3), a melodic outline variation of a song or dance. J. S. Bach used all the main examples of Baroque variation and carried many of them to unprecedented levels of complexity. In his Chaconne for unaccompanied violin (from BWV1004) the theme and 63 variations are arranged in three parts (minor–major–minor); other formal patterns are created by Bach's manipulation of texture, motifs, register, and playing techniques. Similar large­scale organization is found in the ‘Goldberg’ Variations: the 30 variations are arranged in ten groups of three, in which every third variation is a canon at an increasingly wide interval.

The Classical ideal of melodic­outline variations was articulated by Rousseau, who compared the embellishments to embroidery, through which ‘one must always be able to recognize the essence of the melody’. Variation form was important to the leading Classical composers. Haydn used variations on original themes as movements in his keyboard sonatas, quartets, and symphonies. He had a predilection for such hybrid forms as rondo­variations (in which freer and stricter variations alternate) and alternating variations on two themes in contrasting modes (as in his Variations in F minor for piano). Mozart's career as a performer is reflected in his piano variations. He too carefully patterned his variations into coherent larger forms. His independent sets progress from figurative embellishments to variations that treat the theme more freely (changing to the minor mode, developing motifs contrapuntally or in imitation, and reworking the theme as a lyrical Adagio). They end with a longer fantasia­like section, a cadenza, or a reprise of the theme.

Beethoven developed variation form to a greater extent than his Classical predecessors. His variation sets (e.g. the 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor WOO80) have a strong sense of goal orientation, working towards an idealized version of the theme. He increasingly eschewed melodic­outline variations in favour of a more thorough exploration of the theme's musical possibilities and ethos. Variation forms became ever more important in Beethoven's late work, offering powerful alternatives to his dramatic sonata forms, and they form the centrepiece of most of his late sonatas and quartets.

Melodic­outline variations continued to be used throughout the 19th century, but other types challenged their supremacy. Schubert favoured cantus­firmus techniques for variations on his own song themes, and sometimes organized his sets so that they relate poetically to the original source, as in the serene ending of the variation movement in the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet D810. Schumann's Romantic sensibility led him towards the fantasia variation. Connections between variations are often elusive and suggestive, so that the music has integrity of feeling rather than Classical thematic coherence: for instance, he regarded his Blumenstück op. 19 as ‘Variations on no theme’. Many composers favoured the formal freedom of fantasia variations, and this type came to dominate the later 19th century. But the most significant composer of variations in this era, Brahms, drew on variation types from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods and produced a striking synthesis of earlier variation techniques in the finale of his Fourth Symphony.

In the 20th century composers found variation form adaptable to the widest variety of styles and techniques. They developed radical new approaches to the organization of variations, and explored anew variation techniques and forms from the distant past. Many musicians adopted a markedly idiosyncratic approach to variations, and for this reason it is impossible to give a brief overview. The reader is guided instead to composer entries, where imaginative solutions to organizing variation form may be discussed in relation to the individual's musical style.

Timothy Rhys Jones

Bibliography

R. Hudson , The Folia, the Saraband, the Passacaglia, and the Chaconne, Musicological Studies and Documents, 35 (Rome, 1982)

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