Musical Form
Theme and Variations
One tune, transformed again and again.
Form / Technique
Theme and variations is one of the oldest and most intuitive forms in music. A composer presents a theme - usually a simple, memorable tune - and then repeats it several times, changing something each time. The listener follows the theme through its transformations, recognizing it even as it's dressed in new clothes.
How variations work
A composer can change almost anything while keeping the theme's identity - usually its basic shape, harmony, or length:
- Melody - decorating the tune with extra notes, or breaking it into fragments.
- Rhythm - turning a stately tune into a quick dance, or a march into a waltz.
- Harmony - putting new chords under the melody.
- Mode - switching from major to minor, which can transform the mood completely.
- Texture and instruments - giving the tune to a different instrument, or surrounding it with counterpoint.
- Character - making the same theme playful, tragic, grand, or tender.
Many sets build steadily, with variations growing more elaborate, before a slow, often minor-key variation and a brilliant finale.
Variations on a bass
In the Baroque era, a popular approach repeated not a melody but a bass line or chord pattern, with new music unfolding above it each time. This ground bass technique underlies the chaconne and passacaglia. Pachelbel's Canon is built over an eight-note ground bass, Purcell's "Dido's Lament" over a slowly descending one, and Bach's monumental Chaconne for solo violin runs a short chord pattern through some sixty variations. Brahms revived the idea for the finale of his Fourth Symphony.
Variations through the eras
The Classical and Romantic eras loved the form. Mozart wrote piano variations on a French song known in English as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet has a slow movement of variations on his own hymn tune, and Schubert's "Trout" Quintet includes variations on his song "Die Forelle." Beethoven took variations to new depths: his Diabelli Variations turn a trivial waltz into 33 variations of extraordinary range.
Later composers used the form to paint portraits and tell stories. Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations (1899) depict his friends, one variation each, including the noble "Nimrod." Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is really a set of 24 variations, and Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra uses variations on a theme by Purcell to show off each section of the orchestra. Jazz improvisation, in which musicians invent new lines over a song's chords, is a close cousin of the same idea.
Famous variations
- Bach - Goldberg Variations (1741) - an aria and thirty variations.
- Bach - Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 for solo violin.
- Mozart - Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, maman" ("Twinkle, Twinkle").
- Beethoven - Diabelli Variations (1823).
- Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1873).
- Elgar - Enigma Variations (1899).
- Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934).
Where to start listening: Mozart's "Twinkle, Twinkle" variations are the perfect introduction - you'll recognize the theme instantly and can hear exactly what each variation changes. Then try the "Nimrod" variation from Elgar's Enigma Variations, and the 18th variation of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody - the theme turned upside down.