Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Rach variation on Paganini theme...

I got intrigued by the thought of a Skrowaczewski piano left hand and orchestra piece. Sure enough, an audio-only recording of it is on YouTube (the uploader doesn't say so, but I think it's the OOP recording of Graffman, Skrowaczewski, and the Minnesota orch.). It's actually a full-fleged concerto with the title of "Concerto Nicolo", and is loosely based on "that" theme, and sounds to me like a sort of spooky but still playful sound portrait of the darker side of the Paganini legend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Uh4fiTnhQ

Blacher's jazzy and brilliant orchestral variations are practically a concerto for orchestra, and are lots of fun -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9cLL2EdIzE

Here is Valerie Tryon playing Friedman's fascinating and very difficult set - I can't help but think that Rachmaninoff knew and was inspired by this music when he did his own variations. There is a wonderful recording by Matti Raekallio of it, but I didn't find it on YT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DquZa8aKE3I

I was surprised that there's even a complete performance of George Rochberg's exhaustive and exhausting Caprice Variations for solo violin on YT - there are 50 variations, and the piece lasts over an hour!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIj4mwvTuCI

I'm not sure why, but I've always got a particular kick out of violin virtuosity - here's a fun sampling of it in the form of Ysaye's variations on the Paganini theme, as played by Ricci, who, in spite of some suspect intonation at times, had great panache in this sort of stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkmo6lIqLCo

Rapsodie on a Theme of Paganini
24 Variations

I’m in proud possession of the score of Opus 43 ...
and am reminded of the haunting Variation XVIII ...
what an experience it was to first sight-read a tune
which had long been locked into my memory.

A treat in store for newcomers ... but, much as the attractive Theme draws one on ... be warned that Rachmaninoff throws in some tricky fingering ...
essentially simple arpeggiated parallel runs by two hands ... surmounted by the blocky Theme in the treble.

But once you have been drawn into the spell ...
you won’t be able to leave Variation XVIII alone.

Thanks everyone but I don't think we're on the same page. It's my fault.

I meant this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Rk23itkZA#t=0m30

They are indeed speaking of the same piece, this is variation 18 from the greater set of 24. Fast forward to ~14:15 in this if you don't believe me. Same piece, it's just part of a longer theme and variations orchestra/piano piece. I don't remember exactly, but this is some form of inverted and major version of the theme. Something like that. Fantastically gorgeous...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL5aiUKPt3Q

How is the Rhapsody a variation? It sounds so different..

It's inverted. Intervals that go down go up instead, and vice-versa.

http://euge.ca/2012/03/16/variation/

It's just upside down and major instead of minor.

We have a winner.

bingo!

BTW, what's most annoying is that radio stations like 'Classic Fm' (in London) gets THAT variation alone and performs it (with strings and all), and everybody gets the impression that it's the full piece (missing, thus, the lovely loud coda!)

grrrr....

As a kid, I learned an arrangement of just the 18th Variation. Imagine my amazement the first time I heard the entire Rhapsody and finally fully appreciated what a stroke of genius that variation was.

I stumbled across the piece in a Jane Seymour film and also learned a "version". I ended up playing it in a bar when the guitar player in my band broke a string. It went over surprisingly well.