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How could you improve as a composer? My answer: "Go to bed an hour early and wake up an hour earlier allowing for more quiet-creative time alone." Sandy B

I'm uncomfortable with longer forms. I can do pieces of a page or so in length, which is good since I write a lot of didactic music, but I'd like to work on some big things - a sketch for a sonata and some ideas for extended variation sets are in my notebook.

I would like to really explore the 12 tone methods in detail, and see if there I can write truly euphonic and yet artistically pleasing music with this technique...I'll keep you posted.

An extended variation set should be a comfortable thing to write. It's just lots of small pieces gathered together, and derived in some manner from a common source.

Uh, that's one way to look at it, but I don't think you'll find the results satisfying. A composer simply must be cognizant of the dramatic progression of any larger scale work. There must be a climax or what I like to think of as a moment of magic. Such moments take planning and inspiration, they don't just happen in a collection of "lots of small pieces gathered together, and derived in some manner from a common source."

One of the reasons I suggest variations as a form is because it eliminates other issues in addressing this concern with larger scale forms. For example, gone is the issue of contrasting theme groups and how to keep them relevant to each other (as well as transitioning from one to the next). To those uncomfortable with larger scales the suggestion is obvious, practice makes perfect. It's said composers teach themselves by doing.

This thread is interesting because it should give each of us the most important issue we should be addressing in improving as composers. My issue is time, but I'm going through a life change (divorce) and may have a lot of time soon (hopefully at least more).

Dear Steve, So sorry about your divorce and I have been there and done that too. Divorce is what caused me to break away from my composing. My teacher really was pressing me to go to a conservatory as a gifted future composer. Wish I had put the divorce off for my art. Hope you do not lose your artistic composing energy to divorce the way I did. Respectfully, Sandy B

Antonius...Your post reminded me of this: That is what I read recently that Leonard Bernstein said about" Rhapsody In Blue, he said, " It is many variations pasted together. "Could someone explain this to me please? I took it he was not giving a favorable review of this Gershwin masterpiece? Bernstein performed this himself at the piano as I have the recording. Sandy B

I guess that's why you don't like Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Steve. Not that I advocated putting those small pieces together without thinking at all about the organization. Or even necessarily using all of them. Beethoven of course thought about the organization, and the first variation is, for example, one of the last he composed for the set.

Perhaps Steve can include an explanation of that, Sandy, in his very hypothetical future reply to me.

Sandy,

I don't know a lot about Rhapsody in Blue, but variations are found in many compositions that are not called "variations." For example, in sonatas, the recapitulation is always a variation of the exposition (different key scheme, different transition, but same ideas). Sonata developments are no more than variations on small parts of the themes. Often a particular theme is played twice, but the second time it is embellished or played with a different left hand part or played in a different key -- i.e. the second time is a variation of the first. Sometimes, in Mozart's sonatas, the secondary theme is derived in some way from the primary theme -- i.e. it is a variation. Etc....

That being said, my impression of Rhapsody in Blue has always been that it's the same theme over and over again, and yet it still feels like a diverse piece of music. I don't know enough to say if it is a "Theme and Variations", but certainly it is composed of many variations on one of the themes.

Thank you and I appreciate your time to share your thinking. I have a more clear understanding now. Sandy B

Sometimes the sonata development contains a new theme or new thematic material, though, as in Mozart's 13th piano sonata (I'd recall/think). I also suppose there are some boundaries to just how far a theme can go without becoming a new theme and not a variation, even if it's still in some way derived from the original theme.

Good point, Antonius -- but what happens with that new theme?

It gets played, and then goes to see other themes in the graveyard of themes.

My hypothetical response to what? Rhapsody in Blue or the Diabelli Variations. Bernstein may have viewed Rhapsody in Blue as a set of variations, but I don't. Yes, there is variation, but they never reach the degree that would be normal for a set of variations and the fundamental character of the theme isn't changed. The point that Sonata form usually includes variation in the repetition of themes is true, but again the underlying character of the themes isn't changed. Development can include new themes, it can include rhythmic spinning out of motives from the main or secondary themes, it can include significant changes in harmonization. The whole point of development is to explore remote outposts such that when the recapitulation occurs you feel like you've come home.

As for the Diabelli Variations, we've discussed this. I just don't find them engaging music. Try not to be hurt by the fact that great minds don't always think alike. That's the beauty of diversity.

You don't have to like the Diabelli Variations, but if that's at all because the set doesn't showcase a sweeping dramatic progression, and is rather "a group of small pieces gathered together, deriving from a common source", then perhaps your idea of what a "very satisfying" variation set consists of isn't "very satisfying" to some of us, including Beethoven (when he was alive). That's what I was getting at.

Are you telling me I'm being unfair to old LvB because one of the components I consider necessary for a large scale work to be considered "great" is that it be engaging music from start to finish. Since when is "a group of small pieces gathered together, deriving from a common source" sufficient to call a piece of music a work of genius or even a satisfying set of variations?
Frankly you're grasping at straws and being insulting in the process. I thought I was being gracious by admitting that great minds don't always think alike. Sadly, you are not returning the favor.

i love Beethoven's Diabelli variations, and wish i could have a fraction of such an ability as Beethoven's to develop a variation set like that. i usually have some ideas on themes, but once i need to develop something from the theme, i would find myself wandering around without knowing where to go...

I like Op. 34 and Op. 35 more.

No. And I wonder how you read that into what I wrote. Even suggesting that I could care about your being anything to Beethoven seems ludicrous to me (unless I cared about it for your own sake). The Diabelli Variations doesn't need your approval any more than mine, even far less does Beethoven. The set is already considered as one of the greatest works that Beethoven composed, considered as such by greater minds than you. Alfred Brendel, for an example, writes that it's "the greatest of all piano works." And I suppose there's no need for me to elaborate on *Beethoven's* status.

My previous response was a clarification of my initial response to *your* initial reply to my first post in this thread. My point was, and continues to be, that you can write me "uh, [what a stupid thing to say]" all you want, but I'm more concerned with how minds far greater than yours have approached the composition of variation sets, in this case how Beethoven approached it in his greatest variation set.