Theme and Variations
One short theme, changed again and again, and you still recognise it. Paganini's Caprice No. 24 in A minor, from his 24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1, published in 1820, is a theme, eleven variations and a finale, all over the simplest skeleton: A minor and its five chord, E. Brahms and Liszt wrote their own versions, and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934) turns it upside down in Variation 18. Using a short theme of our own, learn five ways to vary a melody: rhythm, register, speed, mode and inversion. Then make your own variation, and look back at the whole Inside the Classics 2 module.
In this lesson you'll
- Hear the skeleton under Paganini's Caprice No. 24: A minor and E, i – V, where the raised seventh G♯ pulls hard into A (lesson 12), and know its shape: a theme, 11 variations and a finale.
- Vary a melody in four ways while keeping its bones: change the rhythm (long – short), the register (an octave lower), the speed (twice as fast) and the mode (A minor → A major, C → C♯).
- Turn a melody upside down: keep the first note and mirror every interval, so steps up go down and steps down go up; then make your own variation of our theme in A major and inverted.
Music in this lesson
- Caprice No. 24 in A minorNiccolò Paganini · 24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1 · published 1820
- Variations on a Theme of PaganiniBrahms · 1863
- Rhapsody on a Theme of PaganiniRachmaninoff · 1934 (copyrighted, named only)
Remember
A theme and variations takes one short idea and transforms it again and again; Paganini's Caprice No. 24 does it with a theme, 11 variations and a finale, all built on the simplest harmony, home (A minor) and its five chord (E).
Change the rhythm, the register, the speed or the mode and the melody gets a new face, but the bones still show: the same shape over the same two-chord skeleton.
Inversion flips every interval: what went up now goes down, a mirror image of the tune; Rachmaninoff turned Paganini's theme upside down, slowed it down and put it in D♭ major in Variation 18 of his Rhapsody, and a nervous minor tune became a lush major melody.