Variations and Variation Technique in the Music of Chopin

<p>While Chopin composed only a few works in variation form he employed variations and variation technique in the majority of his works. Multiple modified repetitions of musical units on different levels of a work are so typical of Chopin’s works that this may be considered one of the chief determinants of his style. Focusing on a broad range of Chopin’s works this book explores the extent to which Chopin’s oeuvre is suffused with variations the role that variation technique plays in his work to what extent it interacts with other techniques for developing and modifying musical material and how the variation technique itself evolved. Beginning with a comprehensively documented investigation of the concept of variation in its own right Zofia Chechli?ska employs Riemannian and Schenkerian theory to consider in turn the ways in which Chopin constructs variations on the level of microstructure (motif and phrase) and macrostructure (thematic areas sections movements and form). This is the first English translation of one of the classics of musicological literature in Poland and is essential reading for scholars of Chopin and nineteenth-century music and music analysts.</p>