Variations

One theme repeatedly reshaped, each variation wearing a new face.

Related

ClassicalTheme and VariationsOstinatoPiano

A set of variations takes one theme and reshapes it again and again, each variation wearing a new face while the skeleton stays recognisable. It tests how a composer can stay fresh inside repetition.

Origins and dates

In the sixteenth century lute and keyboard players varied a ground bass. Bach's Goldberg Variations built thirty variations into a single architecture. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations reduced a waltz to its harmonic frame. Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Webern kept the genre alive.

Listening features

First remember the theme's melody, bass and harmony. Then hear which layer a variation changes, adding ornament, altering metre, turning minor, reworking texture or colour. In a ground-bass variation the bass stays while everything above moves. The last variation often returns to the theme, or turns into a fugue that compresses the material once more.

Composers and works

Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Elgar and Webern.

Lineage

It grows from the ground bass and chaconne and leads to jazz improvisation and minimalist repetition. It also supplies finales for sonatas and symphonies.

Misconceptions

Variation is not repetition; the theme is understood anew each time. It need not borrow someone else's tune and can start from an original theme.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Variations" — definitions and dating checked, not quoted
• Charles Rosen, The Classical Style — context checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.