Theme and Variations | Hyperlinks clicked on this page open a new window, which may refer to demonstration features, such as buttons to play music, which are contained on another screen. Please refer to the menu sequence at the foot of that new window, if you wish to go to that other screen. |
The melody of the subject may be recognisable throughout the variations, though sometimes the resemblance may become obscure. In other types of variation the harmony might alter, or the melody might be wrapped in virtuosic rapid passages of semi-qauvers or even demi-semi-quavers.
This form has been continuously popular from the sixteenth century right up to the present day. Baroque composers used it, for example, Bach in his Goldberg Variations. It was popular with the Classical composers, for example Beethoven in his Diabelli Variations, Op 120, for piano. Romantic composers went wild with it, especially Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Instead of representing the pattern as A B C etc, the notation A, A1, A2, A3 is sometimes used when discussing a theme and variations. Alternatively, roman numerals may be used to number off the variations. This form is sometimes a full work on its own, such as Handel's "The Harmonious Blacksmith", or Elgar's "Enigma" variations, or it may form one movement of a symphony, or sonata. An example of the latter is the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in A K551.
Our demonstration of theme and variations form uses a set of variations on the folk tune "The Old Woman and the Pedlar", written for string quartet by Victor Gomersall. Click the green button to hear the entire set of variations, and click the red button to stop at any time. This set has a 3-bar introduction (pizzicato on 1st violin), then the main theme, followed by 4 variations, each of which is exactly 16 bars long, the same as the theme itself.
Clicking the orange button plays the 3 bar introduction. The principal theme (bars 4 - 19) can be heard by clicking the blue button. This has the pattern AABA. The first time round, fragment A is played on the 1st violin, the second time it is heard on the cello. The start of fragment B is an descending octave passage played on the 1st violin, while the viola imitates fragment A in counterpoint.
The yellow button plays Variation I, in which the 1st violin plays rapid semi-quaver passages up high, while a slightly modified theme is played by the 2nd violins.
Variation II is started by clicking the beige-coloured button.In this variation, the theme is not played straight by any instrument. Instead, the instruments wrap semi-quaver passages broadly around the tune. At bar 444 the 2nd violin has a snippet of the tune, then at bar 46 so does the cello.
Variation III (the purple button) is in the tonic minor key (D minor), with the tune played on the 1st violin.
Variation IV (light green button) rounds off the work. It is broadly similar to variation I, with the tune in the 2nd violins.