Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 52: Theme and Variations

  • Play a theme and two contrasting variations as a single arc, each reading the same underlying melody.
  • Identify the variation technique used in each — rhythmic diminution, ornament density, register change — and apply one of them to a melody of your own choosing.

Variations are not new pieces glued together. They are the same piece looked at from different angles.

Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof — the largest body of solo recorder music we have — takes a plain melody through successive variations of increasing density. The lesson below is a stripped-down theme-and-variations in his manner. Play the theme, then two variations, then invent your own.

The theme

Play it without ornament, paying attention to phrase shape. The theme is what the variations will look back at.

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Variation 1 — rhythmic diminution

The theme's long notes break into running eighths while every downbeat still lands on the theme's note. This is divisions — the most basic early variation technique.

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Variation 2 — ornaments and register

This variation adds mordents at downbeats and a turn at the cadence. The eighth-note motion stays, but the line lifts up an octave in places.

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Inventing your own variation

Take any 8-bar melody you have already played and write one variation using either technique:

  • Diminution: replace every quarter with two eighths, choosing passing notes that smooth the line.
  • Ornament density: keep the theme's rhythm; add a mordent at every downbeat and a turn at every cadence.

Now play these

Van Eyck: Doen Daphne d'Over Schoone Maeght
The model; play the theme and first two variations.
Van Eyck: Engels Nachtegaeltje
Birdsong variations reaching the altissimo.
Van Eyck: Amarilli Mia Bella
A slower, more lyrical example of the form.

When you have played both variations above end-to-end at quarter = 80 and written one variation of your own on a melody you choose, move on to Lesson 53.