Variations on a Waltz by Yoshimatsu for the Piano Trio - YC Fall 2020 Competition Entry

Thank you to everyone who has voted for me for the recent YC Fall 2020 Competition, I am truly grateful to have achieved success for this competition! The piece is now linked below in full with the programme notes.

Programme Notes:

The theme follows a simple A-A’-B-A structure as an abridged version of the original Waltz of the Rainbow-coloured flowers by Takashi Yoshimatsu. The theme reorchestrated in the variations follows a mainly violin melody with the cello and piano largely as accompaniment. The theme’s tempo marking is Allegro con Expressivo and is in D minor. The following variations are in the ascending chromatic scale.

Variation 1: Allegretto con Spirito in D# minor

How the Theme was developed: Heterophonic texture in A section, with all 3 instruments playing the theme at different rhythms and embellishments. In B section cello continues with B section of the theme, violin and piano playing in antiphonal texture.

Concepts Explored: Heterophony, Antiphony, Martele strokes

Variation 2: Presto in E Minor

How the Theme was developed: Simple variation with strings playing pizzicato and piano playing the theme with octave leaps. In B section, violin and cello play pizzicato offbeat from one-another.

Concepts Explored: Pizzicato

Variation 3: Andante con Doloroso in F Minor

How the Theme was developed: Took on passacaglia form with new melody composed based on the theme’s chord progression, the 8-bar melody is varied, with the B section an antiphonic section where all instruments take turns playing the melody.

Concepts Explored: Antiphony, Spiccato

Variation 4: Vivace, Quasi Swing in F# Minor/A Major

How the Theme was developed: The rhythm of the theme is altered using syncopation to imitate a swing jazz style. Violin takes the melody with chordal accompaniment in the piano and cello imitates the walking bass. 

Concepts Explored: Walking Bass, Syncopation, Added 9th Chords

Variation 5: Allegro con Lyricoso in G minor

How the Theme was developed: The theme takes on the form of a canon, with all 3 instruments playing slight variations of the theme against one another, two bars apart, making this variation sound like a fugue.

Concepts Explored: Canon

Variation 6: Andante con Cantabile in G# minor/B Major

How the Theme was developed: The piano plays the chordal progression of the theme throughout. In the A section, a new melody on top of it played by the cello. The violin plays spiccato counter-melodies in the high registers. In the B section, motifs are developed and explored with instruments taking turns to play the melody.

Concepts Explored: Antiphony, Spiccato

Variation 7: Vivace in Strict Tempo in A Minor

How the Theme was developed: The strings play chords on multiple strings using martele strokes against the theme played on the piano which is altered to be in 2/4. The left hand of the piano plays octaves throughout.

Concepts Explored: Martele, Multiple Stops

Variation 8: Andantino piu calmo in B-flat Major

How the Theme was developed: Glissando is extensively used in the strings (although not audible in the mp3 file due to playback issues). A new melody is played on top of the Theme’s chord progressions in the A section. In the B section, the theme’s B section is played as the countermelody to a new melody, where all 3 instruments take turns playing the new melody. In addition, modulations to D Major are also explored.

Concepts Explored: Glissando

Variation 9: Adagio con Grazioso in B Minor

How the Theme was developed: The cello plays an inverted form of the theme with the piano playing running notes in high registers as the countermelody. The violin plays the accompaniment with natural harmonics and double stops in the B section.

Concepts Explored: Inversion, Natural Harmonics, Double Stops

Variation 10: Vivace con Agitato in C Minor

How the Theme was developed: The variation takes on an impressionistic style with its sudden dynamic changes and quick changes in tone colours. In the A section, the theme is played in left hand of the piano while strings plays tremolo doubling one another in compound third intervals. In the B section, the theme is alternated between the left and right hand of the piano with motifs thoroughly explored, with the theme serving as the countermelody to the strings taking over the melody.

Concepts Explored: Impressionism, Tremolo

Variation 11: Andante con Lyricoso

How the Theme was developed: A new 4-bar melody is played based on the theme’s chord progressions using the pentatonic scale, and varied with reiterations of the melody on different instruments. The B section of the theme is completely modified with a heterophonic version of the new melody, with all instruments playing the melody in different rhythms and embellished.

Concepts Explored: Pentatonic Scale, Heterophony

The piece rounds off with a short recapitulation of the theme with the violin and cello taking turns playing the melody.

Nice job and congratulations on 1st place!

So I voted for your piece as 1st place because I thought you did the most extensive development of the theme.  You transform the key, tempo, mode, and rhythms of the theme quite exhaustively.  My criticism of this is that it seems to progress as more of an exhaustive exercise rather than a piece of music.  Also, by changing the key of each variation you separate the variations from each other when they should really be transitioning into each other.  It starts to sound like a gimmick for the sake of tonal novelty.  It would have been nice to hear two variations smoothly lead into one another through some kind of modulation.  About your choice of keys - going up by half-step in each variation isn't really that great of a musical choice and it gets old.  You could have come up with some kind of macro-tonal scheme based on the theme for your keys.  I'll leave you with a quote by Brahms reflecting on the nature of Variation form (and also reminding I think that Variations are both a form and a process):

"I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.  Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject . . . . But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined - I don't know how to put it - to fuss about with the theme.  We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.  And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable."

- Brahms, letter to Joseph Joachim, 1856

Overall I think you fall pray to something I have been a victim of myself when writing variations - to lose track of the musicality of the result.  Thanks for your participation!

1 minute ago, PaperComposer said:

Nice job and congratulations on 1st place!

So I voted for your piece as 1st place because I thought you did the most extensive development of the theme.  You transform the key, tempo, mode, and rhythms of the theme quite exhaustively.  My criticism of this is that it seems to progress as more of an exhaustive exercise rather than a piece of music.  Also, by changing the key of each variation you separate the variations from each other when they should really be transitioning into each other.  It starts to sound like a gimmick for the sake of tonal novelty.  It would have been nice to hear two variations smoothly lead into one another through some kind of modulation.  About your choice of keys - going up by half-step in each variation isn't really that great of a musical choice and it gets old.  You could have come up with some kind of macro-tonal scheme based on the theme for your keys.  I'll leave you with a quote by Brahms reflecting on the nature of Variation form (and also reminding I think that Variations are both a form and a process):

"I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.  Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject . . . . But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined - I don't know how to put it - to fuss about with the theme.  We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.  And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable."

- Brahms, letter to Joseph Joachim, 1856

Overall I think you fall pray to something I have been a victim of myself when writing variations - to lose track of the musicality of the result.  Thanks for your participation!

 

I have to agree, I think one of the main issues with this piece was also the fact that it was too lengthy and maybe I should have cut down on the variations. Yea I felt that the musicality of the piece should be improved because they sounded slightly disjointed due to the lack of transition between variations, and I won't repeat the same mistake of using a chromatic ascending sequence, as it forced me to include too many variations and in the end with not enough ideas some of the variations actually sounded more like filler (particularly var. 9). This was my first whole-hearted attempt at a theme and variations so I hope to improve on this form in the future. Thank you for your comments though!

got my 1st place vote

1 minute ago, Left Unexplained said:

got my 1st place vote

 

Ohh thanks for the vote!