MUSICAL COMPOSITION

MELODIES AND VARIATIONS 53took, and to explore for ourselves the country theydiscovered and mapped out. It is unnecessary to printat length the examples of variations which will beanalysed here. All that the student requires for thepurpose of following the illustrations are a copy ofBeethoven's pianoforte works, and of Brahms' Variationson the Chorale St. Antoni of Haydn.I. THE THEME.Whether the composer writes or chooses his themehe must bear in mind three essentials: firstly, that itshould contain sufficient material to vary j secondly,that it should have at least one striking feature jthirdly, that it should be simple. Abundance ofsuggestive material is 8 self-evident necessity. Ifthere is not enough contrast in the phrases, the writerwill run dry of ideas for the variations. But theyshould only be suggestions, which the variations maybe leIt to elaborate. In the theme of the PrometheusVariations given in the former chapter there are at leastfive such phrases. The first two bars, the repeatednotes in the fifth bar, the figure m m in theseventh bar, the scale followed by the three repeatedquavers in the ninth and tenth bars, and the whole ofthe bass, which itself contains other suggestive phrases.Then as to the striking feature. This may beattained in many ways, either by an unusual melodicprogre'3sion or modulation, or by a modification oftempo (such as the pause in the same example), or bya strong dynamic contrast, or by an unusual rhythmin the phrases of the melody itself. The first threeexplain themselves, and examples are innumerable.