Reicha L’art de Varier

 Day 139

Reicha L’art de Varier op 57

Ivan Ilić

This week I am moving away from the delights of French light opera to some heavyweight piano music. I’m going to explore some sets of variations. I won’t cover the Goldbergs or Diabelli as this project is about pieces I haven’t head before, but there is plenty more to go at.

I was alerted to this at David Hurwitz’s YouTube channel the ultimate classical music guide which is full of out of the way information presented in a witty, and occasionally outrageous, style. Reicha is known to wind players though his collection of quintets but before listening to this piece I had no idea how much he had written and how experimental some of it is. This set of 57 variations (it is no coincidence that it is his opus 57) is based on a very simple 12 bar tune.  Reicha is not interested in developing the structure - all most all of the variations have exactly the same 12 bar pattern as the theme, but in exploring different piano sonorities. Some of the writing is fairly conventional but in many places there are very surprising textures. To be honest in some places it sounds just as if he was strumming away at the keyboard seeing what worked, but in other places the music is highly inventive.  Beethoven is the obvious point of reference (the two men were friends and colleagues) but in other places I was reminded of Schumann, not only in some of the chromatic touches in the harmony but also in the rhythmic displacement where fragments of melody are touched on in the second or fourth semi quaver of a continuous passage. Given that this music was written in 1803 that really is a glimpse into the future.

I am not sure whether Reicha ever intended this music to be performances as a continuous piece  or whether he planned it as a pedagogical work for students to dip in and out of to practice particular piano techniques. There is just about enough variety here to capture the attention of the listener for the almost one and a half hours that the piece lasts (I took a coffee break halfway through) but there were times when I really wanted him to  break out of the self-imposed straight jacket of the 12 bar phrase. I had hoped that perhaps there would be a free form finale but no - the ending follows the same patterns and doesn’t really bring the work to the conclusion that you would expect after 90 mins.

So an interesting ramble though one of the byways of musical history but it will never be more than a curiousity.