The Piano Variations of American composer Aaron Copland were written for piano solo from January to October 1930. They were dedicated to American writer and literary critic Gerald Sykes (c. 1904–1984), and were originally published in 1932 by Cos Cob Press, which merged with Arrow Music Press in 1938 and was taken over by Boosey & Hawkes in 1956. The approximate performance time is 11 minutes.
34-474: The Piano Variations were a product of Copland's second-style period, also called the abstract period, which consisted only of 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
68-536: A consensus that music provides at least some signification or meaning, in terms of which it is understood . The cultural bases of musical understanding have been highlighted in Philip Bohlman 's work, who considers music as a form of cultural communication: There are those who believe that music represents nothing other than itself. I argue that we are constantly giving it new and different abilities to represent who we are. Bohlman has gone on to argue that
102-430: 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. 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
136-562: A good one." Copland transcribed the Piano Variations for orchestra in 1957 after a commission from the Louisville Orchestra . These Orchestral Variations were premiered the following year, conducted by Robert Whitney . Copland regarded the "lean, percussive and rather harmonically severe" quality of the piano as essential to the Piano Variations in 1930, but after 27 years, reinvented the work to take advantage of
170-446: A motif is a musical cryptogram of the name involved. A head-motif (German: Kopfmotiv ) is a musical idea at the opening of a set of movements which serves to unite those movements. Scruton , however, suggests that a motif is distinguished from a figure in that a motif is foreground while a figure is background: "A figure resembles a moulding in architecture: it is 'open at both ends', so as to be endlessly repeatable. In hearing
204-442: A phrase as a figure, rather than a motif, we are at the same time placing it in the background, even if it is...strong and melodious". Any motif may be used to construct complete melodies , themes and pieces . Musical development uses a distinct musical figure that is subsequently altered, repeated, or sequenced throughout a piece or section of a piece of music, guaranteeing its unity. Such motivic development has its roots in
238-428: A rhythmically basic time-unit." Anton Webern defines a motif as, "the smallest independent particle in a musical idea", which are recognizable through their repetition. Arnold Schoenberg defines a motif as, "a unit which contains one or more features of interval and rhythm [whose] presence is maintained in constant use throughout a piece". Head-motif (German: Kopfmotiv ) refers to an opening musical idea of
272-491: A satisfactory premiere of his masterpiece. Unfortunately, Gieseking (who had performed in the premiere of the piano trio Vitebsk in New York in 1929) turned down Copland's request for a premiere due to the piece's "crude dissonances" and "severity of style". 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
306-475: A structure of prejudgment, music simply becomes meaningful." Music which appears to demand an interpretation, but is abstract enough to warrant objectivity (e.g. Tchaikovsky 's 6th Symphony), is what Lydia Goehr refers to as "double-sided autonomy". This happens when the formalist properties of music became attractive to composers because, having no meaning to speak of, music could be used to envision an alternative cultural and/or political order, while escaping
340-442: Is a series of chords defined in the abstract, that is, without reference to melody or rhythm. A melodic motif is a melodic formula , established without reference to intervals . A rhythmic motif is the term designating a characteristic rhythmic formula, an abstraction drawn from the rhythmic values of a melody. A motif thematically associated with a person, place, or idea is called a leitmotif or idée fixe . Occasionally such
374-417: Is characteristic of a composition . The motif is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity. The Encyclopédie de la Pléiade defines a motif as a "melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic cell ", whereas the 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle maintains that it may contain one or more cells, though it remains the smallest analyzable element or phrase within a subject . It is commonly regarded as
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#1732788107218408-463: Is rarely about nothing, but reflects aesthetic tastes that are themselves influenced by culture, politics and philosophy. Composers are often bound up in a web of tradition and influence, in which they strive to consciously situate themselves in relation to other composers and styles. Lawrence Kramer , on the other hand, believes music has no means to reserve a "specific layer or pocket for meaning. Once it has been brought into sustainable connection with
442-489: Is the "immersion of a musical motif in a composition", i.e., keeping motifs and themes below the surface or playing with their identity, and has been used by composers including Miriam Gideon , as in "Night is my Sister" (1952) and "Fantasy on a Javanese Motif" (1958), and Donald Erb . The use of motifs is discussed in Adolph Weiss ' "The Lyceum of Schönberg". Hugo Riemann defines a motif as "the concrete content of
476-510: Is the piece's rhythmic irregularity. The meters change constantly within an essentially 4/4 framework. Sources Absolute music Absolute music (sometimes abstract music ) is music that is not explicitly "about" anything; in contrast to program music , it is non- representational . The idea of absolute music developed at the end of the 18th century in the writings of authors of early German Romanticism , such as Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder , Ludwig Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann but
510-406: The serialist techniques of Schoenberg . The concision, rigor, and lack of ornamentation have been compared to that of the style of Anton Webern . 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
544-574: 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
578-422: The beauty of the music. Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound. Formalism therefore rejected genres such as opera , song and tone poems as they conveyed explicit meanings or programmatic imagery. Symphonic forms were considered more aesthetically pure. (The choral finale of Beethoven 's Ninth Symphony, as well as
612-476: The idea of what can be labeled as "spiritual absolutism". In this respect, instrumental music transcends other arts and languages to become the discourse of a 'higher realm', an idea expressed in Hoffmann's review of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, published in 1813. These thinkers believed that music could be more emotionally powerful and stimulating without words. According to Richter, music would eventually 'outlast'
646-585: The judgement of reason than any other of the fine arts" because of its lack of conceptual content, thus treating as a deficit the very feature of music that others celebrated. Johann Gottfried Herder , in contrast, regarded music as the highest of the arts because of its spirituality, which Herder attributed to the invisibility of sound. The ensuing arguments among musicians, composers, music historians and critics continue today. A group of Romantics consisting of Johann Gottfried Herder , Johann Wolfgang Goethe , Jean Paul Richter and E.T.A. Hoffmann gave rise to
680-406: The keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and the sonata form of Haydn and Mozart's age. Arguably Beethoven achieved the highest elaboration of this technique; the famous "fate motif" —the pattern of three short notes followed by one long one—that opens his Fifth Symphony and reappears throughout the work in surprising and refreshing permutations is a classic example. Motivic saturation
714-540: The piece, Copland "sardonically thumbed his nose at all those esthetic attributes which have hitherto been considered essential to the creation of music". Dancer-choreographer Martha Graham requested permission to choreograph a solo piece on the Piano Variations. With 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
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#1732788107218748-426: 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". 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
782-492: The programmatic Sixth Symphony , became problematic to formalist critics who had championed the composer as a pioneer of the Absolute, especially with the late Beethoven string quartets). Carl Dahlhaus described absolute music as music without a "concept, object, and purpose". Richard Wagner was a vocal opponent of absolute music, a phrase he coined. Wagner considered the choral finale of Beethoven 's Ninth Symphony to be
816-788: The proof that music works better with words, famously saying: "Where music can go no further, there comes the word ... the word stands higher than the tone." Wagner also called Beethoven's Ninth Symphony the death knell of the symphony, for he was far more interested in combining all forms of art with his Gesamtkunstwerk . Today, the debate continues over whether music has, or ought to have, extramusical meaning or not. However, most contemporary views , reflecting ideas emerging from views of subjectivity in linguistic meaning arising in cognitive linguistics , as well as Kuhn 's work on cultural biases in science and other ideas on meaning and aesthetics (e.g. Wittgenstein on cultural constructions in thought and language ), appear to be moving towards
850-478: 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." American composer Marc Blitzstein called it "Lithic." The cold, hard tone of Copland's playing at the premiere, far from that of a concert pianist, lent a sharper edge to an already austere work. Leonard Bernstein later reported that he adored
884-454: The same relation as does intelligible verbal discourse. If that relation be not exemplification but instead, say, expression, then music and language are, at any rate, in the same, and quite comfortable, boat. Motif (music) In music , a motif ( / m oʊ ˈ t iː f / ) or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure , musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or
918-516: The scrutiny of the censor. On the topic of musical meaning, Wittgenstein , at several points in his late diary Culture and Value , ascribes meaning to music, for instance, that in the finale, a conclusion is being drawn, e.g.: [One] can point to particular places in a tune by Schubert and say: look, that is the point of the tune, this is where the thought comes to a head. Jerrold Levinson has drawn extensively on Wittgenstein to comment: Intelligible music stands to literal thinking in precisely
952-427: The shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as a musical idea. "The smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity". Grove and Larousse also agree that the motif may have harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic aspects, Grove adding that it "is most often thought of in melodic terms, and it is this aspect of the motif that is connoted by the term 'figure'." A harmonic motif
986-478: The style of his other works. Copland also experimented with the potential of the physical instrument, as he did with microtones on the stringed instruments in Vitebsk (1929). 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
1020-418: The term was not coined until 1846 where it was first used by Richard Wagner in a programme to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony . The aesthetic ideas underlying absolute music derive from debates over the relative value of what was known in the early years of aesthetic theory as the fine arts. Kant , in his Critique of Judgment , dismissed music as "more a matter of enjoyment than culture" and "less worth in
1054-613: The time was right, the order of the variations fell into place." 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
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1088-476: The use of music, e.g. among the Jewish diaspora , was in fact a form of identity building . Susan McClary has criticised the notion of 'absolute music', arguing that all music, whether explicitly programmatic or not, contains implicit programs that reflect the tastes, politics, aesthetic philosophies and social attitudes of the composer and their historical situation. Such scholars would argue that classical music
1122-527: The word. Formalism is the concept of music for music's sake, or that music's 'meaning' is entirely in its form. In this respect, music has no extra-musical meaning at all and is enjoyed by appreciation of its formal structure and technical construction. The 19th century music critic Eduard Hanslick argued that music could be enjoyed as pure sound and form, and that it needed no connotation of extra-musical elements to warrant its existence. He argued that in fact, these extra-musical ideas and images detracted from
1156-447: Was considered as complex and abstruse as my music". Unlike a traditional theme and variations, Copland's Piano Variations are not episodic. They are continuously played through, in an undisrupted development of the seven-note "row" in the theme from which Copland builds the rest of the piece, "in what I hope is a consistently logical way". All of the content can be traced back to this or transpositions of this seven-note motif , suggesting
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