What are the best musical variations on a theme? German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser selects his favourite variations in classical music, from Bach to Britten.
Edward Elgar – Enigma Variations
In Elgar’s Cello Concerto the composer decries the loss of his world in the aftermath of World War I. In the Enigma Variations, written 20 years earlier, he takes us into the middle of that world, writing about his surroundings and the people in his life. The result feels very personal: like an invitation to an afternoon party with good friends. I love that he’s not shy about depicting their eccentricities as well as the warmth of his feelings towards them.
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Rococo Variations
Mozart was Tchaikovsky’s favourite composer, and this piece is a reverie to Mozartean style as viewed through the particular lens of Tchaikovsky. We tend to associate Tchaikovsky with an enormous outpouring of emotion. But in the Rococo Variations there is a sense of restraint, reminding us that Tchaikovsky was not just the composer who wrote the ‘Pathétique’ Symphony but also the ballet composer, capable of lightness and elegance. It is a piece that changed my life after I received a special prize for performing it at the Tchaikovsky Competition.
Benjamin Britten – Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
People say that Britten developed into a master composer after the Second World War, when his music became edgier and darker. But I love this example of pre-war Britten. It’s so bright and open, without a care in the world, and yet it is also refined. In addition to music by Britten’s teacher Frank Bridge, there’s a Wiener Walzer and Italian opera – as if Britten is listing the composers he discussed with Bridge, saying, ‘Master, let me show you a panopticon of our work together.’ It’s an incredibly personal tribute.
Max Reger – Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart
These days, only organists really allow Reger into concert repertoire, which is unfortunate because he was an incredible genius who was able to juggle harmonies as though he were juggling with five balls. If anything, he was too smart for his own good: sometimes his harmonic changes are so fast and virtuosic that, as a listener, I have a hard time following him. In the Mozart Variations, however, he takes the listener with him: the harmonic changes are challenging and edgy but never to the point that you lose track of where he is going.
Richard Strauss – Don Quixote
Strauss was good at satirising his characters’ shortcomings. In this tone poem for cello, viola and orchestra he paints his two heroes – the unfortunate knight Don Quixote and his servant – with kindness, but also with ugliness and flaws. The cello plays the part of Don Quixote and in Strauss’s time it really sounded like an unfortunate knight: thinner in the high register and a little rusty lower down, due to the gut strings. Now, both the cello and viola have evolved, but through that evolution we have lost an element of rawness and the charm that goes with it.
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JS Bach – Goldberg Variations
We find Bach at his most humane in these variations, especially in the Quodlibet – a form of song often performed in the Bach family. I love that the composer is willing to reveal this everyday side to himself. It’s also striking that the piece consists of so many variations. Was he really planning from the outset to write 30? Or did he just think, ‘This is going really well; it just keeps coming out,’ and so continued to give more and more? Who knows.
Paul Hindemith – Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Hindemith is known for being a bit angular and scholastic, but these variations are full of humour and life. The original Weber themes are from the composer’s music for Turandot (Yes! Like Puccini, Weber also wrote a Turandot!), but Hindemith recasts them in his own angular style. The result is an orchestral showpiece, full of musical fireworks. I recommend listening first to Weber’s original and then to Hindemith for comparison: it’s a joy.
Who is Johannes Moser?
Hailing from Munich, Johannes Moser started playing the cello aged eight. In 2002, he leapt to fame by winning second prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. He regularly performs with leading orchestras, is an active chamber musician and is keen to expand the focus of classical music through outreach projects and new commissions. His next album, Songs of Joy and Sorrow with guitarist Xuefei Yang, is out in September on Platoon.