Lesson 52: Theme and Variations

Play a theme and two contrasting variations as a single arc, each reading the same underlying melody.
Identify the variation technique used in each — rhythmic diminution, ornament density, register change — and apply one of them to a melody of your own choosing.

Variations are not new pieces glued together. They are the same piece looked at from different angles.

The Dutch recorder player Jacob van Eyck spent thirty years sitting on the steps of the Janskerk in Utrecht improvising variations on popular tunes — psalm settings, secular songs, dances — for passers-by. His collection Der Fluyten Lust-hof (1646–1649) is the largest body of solo recorder music we have. Each piece begins with the plain melody and then proceeds through successive variations that decorate, diminute, and decorate again. The lesson below is a stripped-down theme-and-variations on a simple 8-bar melody — not van Eyck himself, but in his manner. You will play the theme, then two variations of increasing density, then practise inventing your own.

The theme

A plain 8-bar melody in D minor — the kind of singable, square-phrased tune van Eyck loved. Play it without ornament, paying attention to phrase shape. The theme is what the variations will look back at.

Variation 1 — rhythmic diminution

The first variation breaks the long notes of the theme into running eighths. The melodic skeleton stays the same: the downbeats of every bar still land on the theme's note. What changes is the surface activity. This is the most basic Renaissance and early Baroque variation technique: divisions, or breaking longer notes into shorter ones.

Variation 2 — ornaments and register

The second variation goes higher and adds ornaments — mordents at downbeats, a turn at the cadence. The eighth-note motion of Variation 1 stays, but now the line lifts up an octave in places, exploiting the high register you have built in Lessons 49 and 50.

Inventing your own variation

Take any 8-bar melody you have already played — Greensleeves, Frère Jacques, a Telemann theme — and write one variation following one of the two techniques above:

Diminution: replace every quarter with two eighths, choosing passing notes that smooth the line.
Ornament density: keep the rhythm of the theme, but add a mordent at every downbeat and a turn at every cadence.

The point is not to write a great variation. The point is to feel what choices the Renaissance and Baroque variation composers were making — one decision per bar, applied consistently across the whole piece.

Now play these

Van Eyck: Doen Daphne d'Over Schoone Maeght: The model. The theme is the Dowland tune; van Eyck's variations grow steadily denser. Play the theme and the first two variations only on a first pass.
Van Eyck: Engels Nachtegaeltje: The Dutch “English nightingale” — variations that imitate birdsong. The later variations live in the altissimo.
Van Eyck: Amarilli Mia Bella: Variations on Caccini's madrigal. A slower, more lyrical example of the same form.

When you have played both variations above end-to-end at quarter = 80 and written one variation of your own on a melody you choose, move on to the advanced track.

Want more variation models? The reference's learning-a-piece entry covers how to mark up a theme for variation work.