Variations sérieuses

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The Variations sérieuses op. 54 ( MWV U 156 ) are a set of variations for piano by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy . The approximately thirteen-minute work was published in 1842 and is considered one of the composer's masterpieces.

Emergence

Mendelssohn was a skilled improviser and a composer experienced in all typesetting disciplines. At the age of 11 he already undertook extensive concert tours, on which he also played Goethe in Weimar, which was considered one of the highest honors of his time. One would now assume that the variation form would have suited him particularly well. Nevertheless, it was not until 1841 that Mendelssohn wrote three cycles of variations in quick succession, the first of which, the Variations sérieuses op. 54 , can be regarded as his most important piano work. On July 15, 1841, Mendelssohn wrote to his friend Karl Klingemann , who lived in London , that he had worked on his Variations sérieuses with "true passion" . It came out in print a few months later, in January of the following year.

analysis

The somewhat unusual title Variations sérieuses can be interpreted as Mendelssohn's reaction to the music-making practice of his time. 1842, "brilliant Variations" at a time in the so-called pure virtuoso fantasies about trendy topics, from music market flooded, put Mendelssohn with his Op. 54 is a work before that on the one hand to the variations in C Minor by Beethoven to seems to orientate, on the other hand he anticipated the later virtuoso variation style of Brahms , (especially on his variations on a theme by Paganini ).

Main theme

The 16-bar theme is clearly divided into four sections of four bars each. The theme is a melody in sighing syncopation over a chorale-like chord progression. The variations follow one another without a break, with seamless continuations and contrasting cuts alternating.

Variations

  • No. 1: The sustained eighth note movement of the topic dissolves into sixteenth notes.
  • No. 2: The sixteenth notes become sixteenth note triplets.
  • No. 3: Rapid staccato interplay between octaved basses in the left and chords in the right.
  • No. 4: Two-part canon, also based on the staccato technique.
  • No. 5 is characterized by inner restlessness resulting from an accompaniment that looks up syncopated.
  • No. 6: The theme is split into high and low registers, which requires great accuracy on the part of the pianist.
  • No. 7 alternates between chord strikes and arpeggios .
  • No. 8: Sixteenths triplets in the right increase the movement, while the left with staccato eighth notes sets rhythmic accents.
  • No. 9: The eighths of the left from the previous variation are replaced by the same sixteenth triplets as in the right.
  • No. 10 is a contemplative fugato , which restores the elegiac mood.
  • No. 11, a dreamy cantabile , is reminiscent of works by Schumann. With crescendo and ritardando , the transition to
  • No. 12, which resembles lightning-like discharges. Here the composer uses a mixture of repetitions and detachments of the hands to express a violent state of excitement.
  • No. 13 shifts the melody to the tenor register, the right carving it around with light staccato figurations.
  • No. 14, the only variation in major, brings a new haven of calm in that all previous rapid movements are completely forgotten and a chorale that is limited to the simplest sounds.
  • No. 15 "poco a poco più agitato" leads back to the agitated mood of the work in a narrated, plaintive manner (similar to the fifth variation) with alternating quarters struck in the left and quarter chords in the right.
  • No. 16 already prepares the end of the work in frenzied sixteenth-note triplets (Allegro vivace), whereby in each group of three sixteenth-note triplets the left one starts and the right one strikes the two further triplets.
  • No. 17, the last "complete" variation, is similar to the sixteenth, only the roles of the two hands are reversed. Here Mendelssohn begins to intensify the restlessness of the rapid movement with dynamic signs, then loses more and more the harmonic framework of the theme and allows the increasingly stronger sixteenth-note figures to gain until the diminished fortissimo decompositions, which require a high level of pianistic skill, at the climax of the work , a tremolo - pedal point on the Quintton with about recurring archetype of the topic, culminate.
  • Now the Presto begins, consisting only of individual parts of the existing motifs with a fortissimo octave in the lowest register. After a tremendous increase with syncopated diminished chords in the left hand, which are reminiscent of No. 5, numerous sforzati and a virtuoso thirty-second run, the retreat follows in diminuendo , whereupon the work ends with calm D minor chords.

reception

The Variations sérieuses op. 54 are one of the composer's most valued works. His good friend, the composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles, confessed "I play the Variations sérieuses over and over again, every time I enjoy the beauties anew". Ferrucio Busoni also valued the work very much. Many pianists have recorded it, notably among them the recordings of Vladimir Horowitz , Svjatoslav Richter and Vladimir Sofronitzky .

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