Composer: Boris Blacher
Piece: Variations on a theme of Paganini, Op. 26 (1947)
Performer: Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti (conductor)
Where: Apple Music, Streamed
This piece was referenced in a composition assignment related to the concept of variable meter. I am not familiar with Blacher, and so chose the recording of a conductor I was familiar with in the available recordings.
First impressions
The work seems reminiscent of a film score. Not to the same extent as Holst’s The Planets, but it does have a very episodic feel. Perhaps that is in the nature of the idea of variations, but the orchestration does seem a bit quite abrupt. (I am unable to easily hear the Paganini theme, played first on the solo violin, recurring through the variations, so I might be presuming a bit too much here.)
It is difficult for me to listen to this without hearing film cues, or animates Disney characters scampering through the forest when the flutes or piccolos play in the upper register. On my second listen to this piece, from the other room, my girlfriend shouted “Run, Bambi, run!” partway through. I may have to retrain my ear to be able to appreciate music of this sort better.
Going in to the piece, the assignment had mentioned the concept of variable meter. I did not read into that first, to see if there is anything I would pick up on a naive listen. And I did not pick up on anything notable that might relate.
At this point I lack the vocabulary to describe or classify the aspect of the music that makes it like a soundtrack. But it does seem as though the higher woodwinds and violins are representing some character in short phrases, and that’s what sounds like film cues.
Research
The assignment referred to this piece as his “second Paganini Variations”, and I presumed the first was the work by Brahms. I was surprised to find that Wikipedia lists 18 different classical piece that are based on a Paganini theme [add reference]. Listening to Brahms’s work for solo piano, the variations do make the theme more immediately recognizable as it repeats.
I looked into the the film-like nature of this piece, and it might be that I am thinking of tone poems, or symphonic poems (or perhaps more broadly, program music).[add link to Britannica article] I need to look further into this idea, but I think I will need to be able to better articulate this aspect in future listening logs.
The Grove entry on Blacher describes the concept of variable meters, noting that they date from 1950, three years after this piece was written. He also used
…alternating time signatures which, under Stravinsky’s influence, had become a general principle in Blacher’s work shortly after 1940, were now systematized, their succession being determined by rows that are also subject to retrograde operations. These so called ‘variable metres’, which Blacher introduced in Ornamente for piano (1950), created a great deal of interest at the time and were taken up by other composers, among them Hartmann. But Blacher, by nature anti-orthodox, never used the principle as his sole means of durational organization.
References
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/variations-on-a-theme-of-paganini-op-26/1452306109?i=1452306592
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “symphonic poem.” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 18, 2011. https://www.britannica.com/art/symphonic-poem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variations_on_a_Theme_of_Paganini_(disambiguation)