Variation forms

[Dave2002]

This video by David Bruce is excellent - https://youtu.be/fJfvFqT9XV8

Great for anyone trying to write music, but also should give insights for listeners too.

In the meantime, has anyone ever heard Ben Johnston's String Quartet no 4?

See https://youtu.be/0_WDn04XXcg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Johnston_(composer)

[gradus]

Do contemporary composers write passacaglias? Just listened to a fabulous performance of Bach's C minor Passacaglia and Fugue - so thrilling - played on COTW and this thread seemed the place to ask.

[Serial_Apologist]

Do contemporary composers write passacaglias? Just listened to a fabulous performance of Bach's C minor Passacaglia and Fugue - so thrilling - played on COTW and this thread seemed the place to ask.

Not sure about "contemporary composers", but here's a nice little miniature which is pretty good for your delectation, by one of our elder statesmen, now no longer with us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0qZRRj3vnQ

[Dave2002]

Not sure about "contemporary composers", but here's a nice little miniature which is pretty good for your delectation, by one of our elder statesmen, now no longer with us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0qZRRj3vnQ

Miniature eh!

Filed away for when I have several hours to spare. Quick sample sounds good.

A slightly longer version is here - https://youtu.be/6_iK2tdYmck

And of course there is this even longer exposition - https://youtu.be/6IHdNzTNtkM

[Serial_Apologist]

In a way Schoenberg's 12-tone method of composition devolves onto variations, and indeed, this is the way he saw them as a continuation of Brahms's methods of launching straight into variations while even presenting his expositionary materials, before they're finished. The row, or series, implies a constellation of the 12 tones from any diatonic octave, which can be presented as , say, a chord of twelve tones, or subdivisions into say 3 chords of four pitches each, or any combination. Treated melodically (or more correctly, monodically), each step can be inverted, so that, say, a minor second can be a major seventh, a major sixth a minor third, etc, with the augmented fourth (or diminished fifth) staying the same whether in its original presentation or its inversion. Another, simple way of proceeding is octave displacement, in which, say, a semitonal move from C to C# becomes a move to C# an octave above or below, or however many octaves one wishes.

Some people have asserted that this method of composition imposes unnecessary restrictions on a composer's inspiration, but a lot of composer attracted to it claimed that it liberated them from the clichés of habit, and led them to ways of thinking music that would not otherwise have occurred to them; and by examining the range of possibilities thereby afforded, one can understand why this might have been so. And in any case, in most historical periods composition has tended to follow orthodoxies of one sort or another which were absorbed to the point of being thought of as norms, and then learned. Think of how the church imposed restrictions on modes, changing their line on which modes were acceptable until the expressive potential afforded by different modes became increasingly common knowledge in the 15th and 16th centuries, and then how in the early Baroque period modal usage gave a precedence to the major and minor diatonic modes - a restriction which would then last for 300 years and more!

I think Mr Bruce should have included 12-tone serialism in his coverage of variational possibilities.

[ahinton]

Do contemporary composers write passacaglias? Just listened to a fabulous performance of Bach's C minor Passacaglia and Fugue - so thrilling - played on COTW and this thread seemed the place to ask.

Well, I've included passacaglias in a few works - Sequentia Claviensis, for piano (premièred by Jonathan Powell), Piano Sonata No. 5 and Pansophiæ for John Ogdon, for organ (commissioned, premièred and recorded by Kevin Bowyer), though none in more than a quarter century...

[Bryn]

There are plenty from the 20th Century. Those by and in honour of Shotakovich (Stevenson) spring to mind.

[ahinton]

There are plenty from the 20th Century. Those by and in honour of Shotakovich (Stevenson) spring to mind.

The Stevenson is probably the best known example but it was completed almost 60 years ago and I was assuming gradus to be referring to living composers.

[Barbirollians]

Brahms of course used a Passacaglia in the final movement of the Fourth Symphony .

[cloughie]

Do contemporary composers write passacaglias? Just listened to a fabulous performance of Bach's C minor Passacaglia and Fugue - so thrilling - played on COTW and this thread seemed the place to ask.

I had an LP of Lionel Rogg playing that Bach piece and to this day it remains my favourite Bach organ piece - very nicely played today by Christopher Herrick today!

[edashtav]

I had an LP of Lionel Rogg playing that Bach piece and to this day it remains my favourite Bach organ piece - very nicely played today by Christopher Herrick today!

I agree with both of you. By the way, what a fine COTW episode today’s introduction to the feisty young JSB was! How neatly the padsacaglia fitted with its persistent and unwearying tread after the description of JSB’s 500 mile trek to Lubeck and back to hear the 70 y.o. Buxtehude. Great balance between words and music, too. This is one part of R.3 that is always terrific - a model of find programme making.

[rauschwerk]

When I was 16 I attended a Prom with the following ingenious programme:-

Brahms: St Antoni Variations
Schoenberg: Variations, Op 31
Bach/Respighi: Passacaglia & Fugue BWV 582
Franck: Symphonic Variations
Elgar: Enigma Variations

A very Glock-ish programme!

[jayne lee wilson]

When I was 16 I attended a Prom with the following ingenious programme:-

Brahms: St Antoni Variations
Schoenberg: Variations, Op 31
Bach/Respighi: Passacaglia & Fugue BWV 582
Franck: Symphonic Variations
Elgar: Enigma Variations

A very Glock-ish programme!

How about suggestions for a new Fantasy Prom here?

Let's see......

Part One:
Per Nørgård: Concerto in Due Tempi.

Part Two:
Schmidt: Symphony No.2.

Or......

Part One:
Dohnanyi: Variations on a Nursery Theme Op.25

Part Two:
Poul Ruders: Handel Variations.

[cloughie]

When I was 16 I attended a Prom with the following ingenious programme:-

Brahms: St Antoni Variations
Schoenberg: Variations, Op 31
Bach/Respighi: Passacaglia & Fugue BWV 582
Franck: Symphonic Variations
Elgar: Enigma Variations

A very Glock-ish programme!

Which did you like best then and now

[Serial_Apologist]

Which did you like best then and now

Then.