TWENTIETH- - Synapse Music

SECTIONAL VARIATIONS
Form in Twentieth-Century Music 149
The tenn sectional variations is used here to distinguish the theme with variations from the
ground bass or continuous variations (passacaglia and chaconne), Many sets of sectional variations
have been composed in the twentieth century, works as diverse as Ravel's hyperemotional
and lonal Bolero (1927) and Babbitt's cerebral and alonal Semi-Simple Variations (1957 )
(TUR, p. 526; BUR, p. 5 16). While the compositions just cited use original themes, others such
a. Zoltlin Kodaly's Variations on a Hungarian Folksong (1939) and Frederic Rzewski's The
People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1973) use borrowed material for the theme.
The theme of a traditional set of variations was relatively simple in order to allow for
subsequent embellishment, and it was clearly set off from the music that followed so that the
listener could easily identify and remember the theme. This is essentially the case with Copland's
Piano Variations (1930), using a ten-measure theme that is set off from the first variation
by a fermata. Carter's Variations for Orchestra (1955), on the other hand, begins wilh an introduction
that is dovetailed into (he beginning of the theme through sustained violin tones. The
theme begins at the second of two tempo modulations that slow the tempo from allegro to andante,
which does somewhat help the listener to identify the beginning of the theme. The
theme itself is complex texturally and rhythmically; after 47 measures it runs into Variation I
without pause bUl with another change of tempo. The nine variations are quite free, presenting
a real challenge to the listener attempting to hear the relationship between them and the theme.
Some twentieth-century works that are called variations are not variations in the customary
sense. This tcnds to be especially true of serial, or twelve-tone, "variations" such as
Webem 's Piano Variations, Op. 27 (1936), and Luigi Dallapiccola's Variations for Orchestra
(1954). In both of these works the theme of the variations is not a short composition, as in
traditional variations, but instead is the twelve-tone series itself; and though the series in both
cases surely helps to unify the composition as a whole, the series is not presented irutially as
a tune or theme for the listener to remember. On the other hand, in some twelve-tone "variations"
there is a true theme on which the subsequent variations are clearly based, an example
being Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1928) (TUR, p. 443; WEN, p. 179).
CONTINUOUS VARIATIONS
The traditional forms of continuous variations are the passacaglia, based on a repeating
bass line, or ground, and the cliacoflne, based on a repeating harmonic progression. 5
Though both form s have seen use in this century, the decline of a common harmonic language
has been paralleled by the relative decline of the chaconne as a compositional option.
As one would expect, passacaglia themes in the twentieth century tend to be complicated
and nondiatonic. The fourth move ment of Hindemith's String Quartet No.4 ( 1921)
consists of a passacaglia and a fu gato based on the passacaglia theme, which is shown in
Example 7- 2, Notice that in the course of its seven measures thi s theme sounds every pitch
class but one (E). Passacaglias using all twelve pitch classes have been used, a famou s example
being the passacaglia in Aet J, Seene 4, of Berg's Wozzeck (1921). An intriguing passacaglia
with a twelve-tone theme is "Little Blue Devil ," from Gunther Schuller's Seven
Studies on Themes of Paul Klee ( 1959) (WEN, p. 194). In this work a "jazzy" ni ne-bar bass