Cover Story: Classical sampling as theme and variation
Follow a diabolical theme and its angelic variations through one classical composition
By Michael BarnesJanuary 22, 2004
Click to launch Caprice No. 24:
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Click below for a Rachmaninoff-Paganini primer:
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Click below for 'Variations on a scene': 
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Dum-ta-da-da-da-da, dum-ta-da-da-da-da, dum-ta-da-da-da-da, ta-dum.
Four bars. Twenty notes in a minor key. A slightly martial rhythm, not unlike a drum cadence.
That's all it took for Niccolò Paganini, the violin wizard, to establish the primary musical motif for his Caprice No. 24, composed circa 1805. His theme, or melody, developed on the building block of this 20-note motif, appealed to generations of composers, who penned their own variations on Paganini's indelible pattern of notes.
More than 120 years later, the Russian emigre Sergei Rachmaninoff spun off 24 variations — composers are nothing if not mathematically elegant — for "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." Each of these variations, arranged for piano and orchestra rather than solo violin, repeats parts of the original theme with changes to the rhythm, harmony or other musical components.
(J.S. Bach was the early master of this sort of tinkering, as lionized in Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book, "Gödel, Escher, Bach." In fact, classical composers such as Bach and Mozart were accomplished at improvising on themes in real time, on the piano. Today, that skill has all but disappeared in the classical world; one must turn to jazz for such thrills.)
The most popular modification in "Rhapsody" derives from a simple trick: Rachmaninoff inverts the notes of the theme and places them in a major key. The resulting 18th Variation, unlike Paganini's feisty original, is loftily melodic, lip-smackingly romantic. And it became one of the most beloved melodies in classical music, inspiring pop songs, swing renditions and movie scores.
How does this happen? How can one tiny bundle of notes expand and contract, join others in shifting harmonies, jump octaves or keys, even survive the compositional equivalent of rewinding to create a melody that is the antithesis of the original — and still remain intact?
As pianist Jon Kimura Parker prepares to play "Rhapsody" with the Austin Symphony Orchestra this week, it makes sense to examine the phenomenon of theme and variation through the lens of Rachmaninoff's inspired 1934 composition.
Dealing with the devil
Before scanning the score, one must wrestle with the theme's inventor. The equivalent of a rock star in his time, Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) outplayed the best violinists in Italy by age 12. A soloist with phenomenal technique — he pioneered ricochet bowing, double-hand plucking and double-stop harmonics — he also suffered from several chronic illnesses, including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, that left him looking corpselike. His unparalleled success, instrumental pyrotechnics and bizarre features lent credence to the rumor that Paganini had made some sort of compact with the devil, a reputation he fostered. (For years, Austin musician and actor Robert Rudié performed a solo show about Paganini that emphasized the composer's stagey persona.)
Dramatics aside, Paganini set a two-century standard for virtuoso violinists. Just as crucial was his influence on composers from Chopin and Schumann to Brahms and Rachmaninoff. (American-Statesman music writer Joe Gross relates an anecdote about an Austin rock musician on tour who transposed Paganini for the guitar — with disastrous results for his fingers.)
Caprice No. 24, a musical exercise that showcases the violinist's technical expertise, embodies the "dance with the devil" quality of Paganini's compositions. It calls for legato, staccato, spiccato, tremolo, trills, arpeggios, scales, left-hand pizzicato and multiple-stopping, which, even if you don't recognize the terms, sounds difficult.
"There's something sinister about it," says Austin Symphony conductor Peter Bay. "Perhaps it's the repetition of the melody or, certainly, the minor mode. But it's also fiendishly difficult to play, with all kinds of tricks."
Squeezing and distending the basic 20-note tune into a larger theme, Paganini employs very few chords arranged in the most basic patterns of Western music. And he repeats the motif so often, it's easy to remember, which is the basis of virtually all popular music.
(Folk songs are inherently simple and repetitive, but they are easily rivaled by contemporary pop pabulum, and not just ABBA or techno. The next time you are caught in traffic, count the number of exact repetitions of one phrase of music and lyrics in just about any pop song on the radio.)
The results in the Caprice, however, are febrile, slithery, ghostly. Though the theme is all but drilled into the listener's skull, it remains so flexible, so nimble, that it seems to have a spirit of its own, shape-shifting in the violinist's supple hands.
No wonder dozens of composers found it irresistible.
24 variations and counting
The offspring of a comfortable family in czarist Russia, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) graduated from the jewel of the country's musical training system, the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Some of his most famous compositions were showcases for his clearly articulated skills and lustrous keyboard sounds, and his Second Piano Concerto remains among the most frequently played in concert. (And they are not easy to play. Remember Geoffrey Rush's tortured wrangling with the "Rach 3" as Australian pianist David Helfgott in "Shine"?)
Rachmaninoff made his American concert debut in 1909. When the Russian Revolution broke out, he settled in the United States and commenced a draining concert schedule. "Rhapsody" comes from a period of time in the 1930s when Rachmaninoff was composing at rural European retreats and showed rhythmic gusto, spiky harmonics and comparatively lean scoring. Although considered nostalgic and even melodramatic, these compositions have stood the test of time.
Rachmaninoff premiered "Rhapsody" in Baltimore in 1934. The "rhapsody" of the title refers not to the piece's expressive passion, but rather the freeness of his improvisations on Paganini's now-familiar theme. Rachmaninoff toys with the variations even before he introduces the theme in the 34th bar. In a wink to the instrument played by the theme's creator, the theme is given first to the violin section, with piano playing just the outline, or selection of the same notes.
And there's that everlasting motif: Dum-ta-da-da-da-da, dum-ta-da-da-da-da, dum-ta-da-da-da-da, ta-dum.
Then come the variations:
1. The piano takes the lead through a denser outline of the melody.
2. The piano embraces the wry jauntiness of the theme, while the brass plays the outline.
3. The flutes and violins ramble freely, with little relation to the theme, skipping over their 16th notes.
4. The piano takes the theme up and down the scales, jumping all over the score.
5. Rhythms are distorted, stretched and compacted as if in a carnival ride.
6. More free rhapsodizing.
7. Rachmaninoff introduces a second melody, the ancient "Dies Irae" taken from Gregorian chants, a theme that he has used in previous pieces, while the bassoons and cellos play the main theme in slow motion. Then the violins enter to play it fast motion.
8. This variation maintains the basic shape of the Paganini theme, but is played on the solo piano with added harmony.
9. The rhythm changes to triplets, which sound like a horse's gallop, totally unrelated to the original beat.
10. Here comes the "Dies Irae" again, as the piece builds to its first big climax. Rachmaninoff introduces a jazzy syncopation to fragments — merely suggestions — of the original theme.
11. The theme switches to a major key, the mood changes to a slow, dreamy reverie, with a cadenza, or embellishment, added for the pianist.
12. This variation takes a triple-meter minuet beat (think of a stiff social dance at the court of Louis XIV). The melody is given to the clarinet and the harmony notes, played by the horns, are formed from little, bundled suggestions of the original theme.
13. A literal quotation of the theme is contrasted with another beat, but too fast for a waltz.
14. We're riding a horse, we're riding a horse, and . . .
15. A wildly hard scherzo, or quick, light movement for the piano, the first real show-off moment in the piece — and far afield from the theme.
16. Sounds like a ghostly dance, slow, halting, overtly romantic, with melancholy dripping from a solo violin part. This is one big tease for the all-important 18th variation.
17. Pressure builds through soft brass sirens, anticipation through the softly played piano. The closest thing to sexual foreplay in classical music. Well, outside of everything Wagner wrote.
18. The most radical variation flips the notes of the original and, for the first time in the piece, sustains a major key. This alternation comes seemingly out of nowhere, the piano tentatively establishing the mood, as if touched by first love. This essentially new melody is cherished by the piano, then the violins repeat it in a confident, open, lush manner. It grows more and more passionate, until the violins climax, then wind down and fall out of sync with the piano. (This melody has been borrowed for commercials, pop songs, such as Winifred Atwell's 1954 hit, "The Story Of Three Loves," and the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time.")
19. The senses awaken again with kinetic, spiky motions, back in a minor key. It's more than energetic, it's prickly.
20. Sixteenth notes bunch up with pent-up energy, sounding like the scurrying of animals.
21. A return to jazzy syncopation.
22. Military, almost a march, with fragments of the theme played under the melody. The brass plays the melody in a triumphant fanfare before an extraordinary miniature cadenza.
23. A restatement of the opening melody in the wrong key, then the right key.
24. A big statement of "Dies Irae" to wrap things up. It sounds like it's going to end in an emotionally satisfying major key, but then the piano comes back with a flip minor-key throwaway.
"Rachmaninoff found the perfect theme," Bay says. "It has a basic outline, simple chords, consistent harmonies, repetitive rhythms and, most importantly, it's easily manipulated. Then he simply reinvented it."
In fact, all three melodies — Paganini's diabolical theme from Caprice No. 24, Rachmaninoff's romantic 18th Variation and the subtly introduced "Dies Irae" — follow the rules of ideal melody, as set out in Robert Jourdain's "Music, the Brain and Ecstasy":
• Nearly all the notes are chosen from the seven-note scale upon which the melody is based.
• Most of the melody's notes are adjacent scale notes; jumps are few, large jumps rare.
• To avoid monotony, individual notes are not repeated too much.
• Harmonic resolutions occur at points of rhythmic stress.
• Rhythmic accents highlight the melody's contour.
• The melody remains mostly in its self-defined middle range, avoiding the highest and lowest notes.
In other words, it's easy to hear, easy to comprehend and easy to remember.
Emotional release
On a soggy night 25 years ago, two bedraggled college students lingered outside Houston's Jones Hall, waiting for a befurred patron to endow us with unused tickets, which almost always happened. (We looked threadbare and deserving.) My friend and I arrived in a heightened state of awareness, which made us a little self-conscious when we squeezed into prime seats not far from the stage.
The first piece on the Houston Symphony program was a saxophone concerto by a composer whose name I don't recall. For some reason, we found this very modern anomaly patently silly, so we endured 20 minutes of painfully suppressed giggles.
Then came the "Rhapsody." We had never heard it, had no notion of its seductive potential. Paganini's assertive theme whipped us to attention and its early variations dazzled. The slow build to the 18th Variation seemed unbearable, almost teasing. Yet when the inverted melody broke through, we experienced such an emotional emancipation, it seemed as if the notes were caressing our faces like lovers. The bracing return to the original theme and the flippant finale only amplified our overwhelming pleasure.
Who knows why a theme and its variations have this effect on a listener? Yet this 200-year-old melody — and its 70-year-old kin — have not lost their devilish/angelic hold on the ear, the brain and the heart.
mbarnes@statesman.com; 445-3647
