Sunday Classics preview: Do you know what famliar tune these variations are variations of?

Mystery variation A


by Ken

What we have here is a variation -- for piano and orchestra, as you can hear -- of a theme I'm pretty sure you know. In a moment we're going to hear another variation on this theme, from the same piano-and-orchestra piece, and in the click-through we're going to hear its dramatic orchestral opening, which leads into a solo-piano statement of the theme. And then were gong to have tastes of two more sets of variations on our theme.

There's hardly any composer who hasn't been attracted to the variation form, which provides a chance to show off his imagination. Sets of variations come in free-standing form for every imaginable instrumental configuration, and even (as we're going to hear) for voice, and they also come nestled inside symphonies and string quartets and the like, where the tried-and-true theme-and-variations form quickly became a popular format for the slow movement.

Now we're going to hear our promised second mystery variation, in which, my goodness, the thing has turned into a waltz!

Mystery variation B


A lot of you already know what the music is, and therefore where we're headed with this one. These are hardly obscure works, after all. I hope you'll have fun with it, but I like to think that readers who don't know will have even more fun.


FOR THE OPENING OF THIS PIECE, AND TASTES OF TWO
MORE SETS OF VARIATIONS ON OUR THEME, CLICK HERE

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