The Variations Challenge

This was my effort for the recent Challenge 4 - Variations. 6 variations average a minute each.  They have names.

Theme.

1 Look Lively

2 No Cobwebs Here

3 The Academy of Soppy Film Music

4 Don’t Take It Lightly (atonal)

5 Hit Liszt (piano)

6 Dream Softly (piano)

Because engraving takes up much time, the following score offers only the theme with Variations 1, 3 and 4. Fitting the guitar and piano solos into the software was too problematic so they had to be left out. The score and work are a bit rough. I normally leave at least a month before presenting a piece anywhere so please bear with that.

Many thanks if you can give it a listen.

Edit: Oh, I forgot. I had to take a few lessons with DailyDuo to make Var 5 sound like Liszt.....

SECOND EDIT: Revised audio / content 4 posts below.

Wow - when I first heard this a few weeks ago I was amazed by how quickly you were able to put together 6 minutes of music.  For me (because I write everything on paper first and then enter it into Musescore) there is no circumventing the engraving process.  I'm presuming that you simply played or improvised the piano variations into your DAW using a midi keyboard?  The first variation surprised me with its familiarity - did you mean to quote Dag Wiren (a famous 20th century Swedish composer)?

The last piano variation sounds like lounge music that you purportedly are in the business of improvising which is why I asked if you played it into your DAW - it's really nice to hear such velvety sweet and jazzy music around Christmas time.  Thanks for sharing!

Hah! No I didn't. I must have heard it in times past although the samples I used cry out for a lively rhythm like that. Thank goodness it's only the first bar. LOL I wrote another set of variations. I may swap Var 1 from that which doesn't risk being called out!

But as I declared, I've been receiving tuition from DailyDuo, maybe it infected that first variation. LOL

EDIT: Sadly my knowledge of Scandinavian music is weak, some Sibelius but mainly Hilding Rosenberg's Orchestral music. I was bowled over by his 3rd Symphony. /edit

But thanks indeed for your comments - much appreciated considering how rough the thing is.

Yes, most of it was roughed out on paper (especially Var 4) but the other pieces I had a reasonable idea of the harmony so just some text notes and oddments around the tune. The Vars are so short they didn't need a lot of thinking about. Those solo pieces were played in and edited. It's the rubato that held back trying to get them into score.

So, thanks again, Peter, and I'll have a look at swapping that variation in the next few days.

12 minutes ago, Quinn said:

So, thanks again, Peter, and I'll have a look at swapping that variation in the next few days.

You don't have to!  I like it as is!  LoL - I was just wondering whether you were familiar with that piece and intentionally meant to quote it - no plagiarism here!  If at all you could just add more variations if you feel like it but you should keep what you already have imo.

Well, I did splice in two variations from an earlier try but scotched the "Soppy film music" one that was pretty atrocious! But kept the Dag Wiren plagiarist bit!

So the challenge currently stands at:

Theme. V1: Look lively | V2: No cobwebs here  |  V3: Rural moment  |  V4: Martial moment  | V5: Don't take it lightly  |  V6: Hit Liszt  |  V7: Dream Softly.

Unfortunately this makes the score invalid. I'll try to revamp it over the next week.

Thanks. 

Edit: Of course about Scandinavian composers - I've heard some Grieg?