Piano Variations (Copland)

The Piano Variations of American composer Aaron Copland were written for piano solo from January to October 1930. They were dedicated to American writer Gerald Sykes and were originally published by Cos Cob Press in 1932, which merged with Arrow Music Press in 1938 and was taken over by Boosey & Hawkes in 1956. The approximate performance time is 11 minutes.

Background

The Piano Variations were a product of Copland's second-style period, also called the abstract period, which comprised only instrumental (non-vocal) compositions. During this time, the composer moved away from the jazzy idioms he experimented with in the 1920s and started working more in the direction of absolute music. The influence of composition pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, with whom Copland studied in Paris at the Fontainebleau School of Music for Americans, is prevalent in the formal style, logic, patterns, and attention to detail in the Piano Variations and other works in this period.

Copland stated that he worked on the variations individually without an agenda for fitting them together or sequencing them, which seems to contradict the piece's highly ordered construction and seemingly inevitable development. Copland acknowledged this contradiction but maintained that, in fact, "One fine day when the time was right, the order of the variations fell into place."^{[cite this quote]} Copland had ambitious plans for this "serious piano piece" — the first of three including the Piano Variations (1930), the Piano Sonata (1939-41), and the Piano Fantasy (1957); he worked painstakingly and thought at epic proportions, saying he "should like to call them like Bach did the Goldberg Variations — but thus far haven't been able to think up a good one."^{[cite this quote]}

Transcription as Orchestral Variations (1957)

Copland transcribed the Piano Variations for orchestra in 1957 after a commission from the Louisville Symphony Orchestra. These Orchestral Variations were premiered the following year under conductor Robert Whitney. Copland regarded the "lean, percussive and rather harmonically severe"^{[cite this quote]} quality of the piano as essential to the Piano Variations in 1930, but after 27 years, reinvented the work to take advantage of a full orchestral palette. The Orchestral Variations offer a new perspective on the work, focusing instead on the contrasts of its multifarious moods and colors.

The Orchestral Variations are scored for the following instrumentation.

Woodwinds 2 flutes (both doubling piccolo) Oboe English horn 2 B-flat clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet) 2 bassoons Brass 4 horns in F 2 trumpets in B-flat 3 trombones Tuba Harp Strings

Percussion Timpani 2 Percussionists playing: Snare drum Tenor drum Bass drum Bongo drums Conga drum Cymbals Tam-tam Wood block Glockenspiel Xylophone Tubular bells Antique cymbals Cow bell

Reception

Copland regarded pianist Walter Gieseking very highly for his refined tone and subtle coloration, especially in the performance of Debussy, and insisted that no one else could give a satisfactory premiere of his masterpiece. Unfortunately, Gieseking turned down Copland's request for a premiere due to the piece's "crude dissonances" and "severity of style."^{[cite this quote]} Copland thus premiered the piece himself at a League of Composers Concert in New York on January 4, 1931.

The Piano Variations were praised in some esoteric circles, but the public was generally courteous but lukewarm in its reception. The work was variously described as new, strange, dissonant, stark, bare, and disconcerting. Critic Paul Rosenfeld contemplated its "flinty, metallic sonorities."^{[cite this quote]} American composer Marc Blitzstein called it "Lithic."^{[cite this quote]} The cold, hard tone of Copland's playing at the premiere, far from that of a concert pianist, lended a sharper edge to an already austere work. Leonard Bernstein later reported that he adored the piece, which was "hard as nails," and also used it at parties to "empty the room, guaranteed, in two minutes." It was to him a "synonym for modern music — so prophetic, harsh and wonderful, and so full of modern feeling and thinking."^{[cite this quote]}

Despite the wide spectrum of opinion, the Piano Variations were immediately recognized for their originality and made a lasting impression. The New York Herald Tribune reported that in the piece, Copland "sardonically thumbed his nose at all those esthetic attributes which have hitherto been considered essential to the creation of music."^{[cite this quote]} The work is now regarded^{[by whom?]} as one of the most significant in contemporary piano literature.

Dancer-choreographer Martha Graham requested permission to choreograph a solo piece on the Piano Variations. At Copland's consent, she produced Dithyrambic, an evocation of Dionysus that was received with the highest enthusiasm. Copland admitted to being "utterly astonished that anyone could consider this kind of music suitable for dance... although her choreography was considered as complex and abstruse as my music."^{[cite this quote]}

The Variations

Overview

Unlike a traditional theme and variations, Copland's Piano Variations are not episodic. They are continuously played through, in an undisrupted development of the four-note "row" in the theme from which Copland builds the rest of the piece. All of the content can be traced back to this or transpositions of this four-note [[motif (music)|motif, suggesting the serialist techniques of Schoenberg. The concision, rigor, and lack of ornamentation have been compared to that of the style of Anton Webern (as in his Variations for piano). The dissonances (ubiquitous minor seconds, major sevenths and ninths) are precisely chosen for their degree of "shock value". While working on the Piano Variations, Copland cultivated a tautness and clarity of form and texture that became a precursor to the style of his other works.

Copland does not actually follow the precepts of the Second Viennese School exactly, although he considers them. Aside from the fact that the four-note "row" is eight tones short of being a 12-tone row, Copland frequently uses repetition in a declamatory style, as well as modifies and inserts new ideas into his motifs. This is another, smaller-scale form of "variation" that pervades the whole piece. This additional degree of freedom for the composer's imagination permits a gradual metamorphosis of the theme, and in a short period of time he explores many different moods, textures, tonal centers, harmonies, tempi, and rhythms, with a powerful cumulative effect. Copland describes the result as manifesting a "very dry and bare grandiosity."^{[cite this quote]}

Copland also experimented with the potential of the physical instrument, as he did with microtones on the stringed instruments in Vitebsk. In the Piano Variations, some notes are held down silently while pitches selected from their overtone series are struck, which produces an effect of ringing resonances without hammering the tones directly.

Another prominent characteristic is the piece's rhythmic irregularity. The meters change constantly within an essentially 4/4 framework.

Analysis

• Theme

Copland instructs the performer to "strike each note sharply" in the opening motif, as each is highly significant. The first four notes, E – C – D# – C#, a view of the octatonic scale, "seed" the whole work by determining the language of its harmonies and pitches. Some scholars^[who?] believe that the presence of the major and minor third in the motif are due to Copland's previous experimentation with jazz and the blues. Whether or not this is true, there is certainly an element of polytonality immediately apparent in the third measure, which has an accented chord in both A major and minor.

Alternatively, the theme can be conceived of as part of a C-sharp minor scale; scale degrees ^3, ^7, ^2 and then ^1. This rather diatonic sequence is obscured by Copland's crunchy harmonies throughout the rest of the piece, but despite dissonances going on around it, whenever this theme arises again its pull engenders a sense of tonic in the listener, which makes the otherwise chaotic sounds comprehensible.

• Var. 1 (m. 12)

The organization of the piece partitions the variations into halves; variations 1-10 can be considered a unit with two large sections of five variations each. In this entire first half, the quarter note functions as the basic rhythmic unit. What differs between the two five-variation sets is the tonal center of the four-note motif; in variations 1-5 it is as stated in the theme, and in variations 6-10 it is permitted to be transposed.

This variation is a simple canon at the unison.

• Var. 2 (m. 21)

The theme expands into registers in a sort of dialogue in the first phrase, and is harmonized in the second phrase.

• Var. 3 (m. 32)

There is dialogue of the theme against itself as in variation 2, but Copland adds dotted rhythms and pointillist effects that further broaden the range.

(mm. 34-37)

• Var. 4 (m. 42)

The theme harmonized in three voices, over which a fourth melodic line wanders lyrically.

• Var. 5 (m. 49)

The chords thicken and become accented, increasing drama and intensity.

This variation marks the end of first harmonic section.

• Var. 6 (m. 57)

In the second half of the first unit (variations 6-10), the four-note motif is transposed. For this particular variation, it is transposed up a minor third, now reading G — Eb — F# — E. From here on, the placement of the theme is sometimes less apparent amidst the increasing complexity of surrounding elements, so Copland indicates to "mark the melody."

• Var. 7 (m. 67)

The mood becomes bolder as the theme sweeps in spaced-out quarter notes up the keyboard, settling on E-major triads (and one in F major) at the end of each gesture. This is an example of Copland's ability to weave consonance seamlessly with dissonance.

(mm. 68-72)

• Var. 8 (m. 78)

Copland marks the section to be played "blurred," as if a murk of brewing musical ideas. The four notes transpose up another third to B — G — Bb — Ab and appear in the inner voice of the left hand.

• Var. 9 (m. 91)

This warm and singing variation brings back the original theme's transposition in the right hand. The left hand uses a different transposition: G# — E — G — F.

• Var. 10 (m. 104)

The four-motif, F — Db — E — D, is now marked fortissimo and spans three octaves. Material from variation 4 is repeated before transitioning into the second half of the variations. This cyclic technique unifies and concludes the first half of the variations.

• Var. 11 (m. 113)

The second half starts in a quiet, improvisational interlude over F# — D — F — Eb (up a half step).

• Var. 12 (m. 125)

This timid scherzo is the beginning of a slow building of intensity to the climax of the entire piece.

• Var. 13 (m. 134)

Another scherzo in the manner of variation 12.

• Var. 14 (m. 142)

The original four notes come back with a new orthography of E — C — Eb — Db. This transposition is maintained for next five variations, which are more concerned about rhythmic development.

• Var. 15 (m. 168)

The theme appears in augmentation amidst a circling pattern of eighth notes.

(mm.169-172)

• Var. 16 (m. 201)

Chords interrupt the line, with frequent changes of meter.

• Var. 17 (m. 225)

Runs and leaping octaves are tempered by a single consonant, static phrase in the middle of the variation comprising repeated E-major chords in the right hand and a left hand oscillating irregularly between C and E.

• Var. 18 (m. 247)

Another scherzo reminds the listener of variations 12 and 13, placing this variation in the second half and putting the imminent climax in perspective.

• Var. 19 (m. 271)

This variation starts calmly with quiet, sustained chords over B—G—Bb—Ab before launching the ascent to the climax.

• Var. 20 (m. 286)

Variation 20 is considerably longer than all the others. The motive moves forward and in retrograde simultaneously in a nervous, excited rhythm characterized by 32nd notes. The brilliant climax brings the performer to the extremes of the instrument's range.

• Coda (m. 339)

The coda synthesizes material from many of the variations in a slow, stately, almost orchestral manner. The original relationship of the four-note motif returns.

References

• Berger, Arthur. Aaron Copland. Oxford University Press, 1953. ISBN 0-306-76266-8.
• Copland, Aaron, and Vivian Perlis. Copland 1900 Through 1942. St. Martin's/Marek, 1984. ISBN 0-312-16962-0.
• Smith, Julia. Aaron Copland: His Work and Contribution to American Music. E.P. Dutton & Company, 1955.
• Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland. Henry Holt and Company, 1999. ISBN 0252069005 .
• Aaron Copland: A Reader: Selected Writings 1923-1972. Edited, with an introduction, by Richard Kostelanetz. Asst. editor Steve Silverstein. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-93940-2.