Variations

Featuring

Clare Hammond
Karol Szymanowski
Helmut Lachenmann
Harrison Birtwistle
John Adams
Aaron Copland

Paul Hindemith
Sofia Gubaidulina

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Performer Biography

Clare Hammond, the pianist on this album, won the Royal Philharmonic Society's 'Young Artist Award' in 2016 for outstanding achievement.

Composer's Artistic Vision

The album's concept explores how composers have transcended the apparent limitations of variation form, creating works with a wide range of emotions.

Compositional Technique

Aaron Copland's Piano Variations are built around a spare four-note motif from which all other musical material is derived, employing serial techniques and various transformations.

Composition History

Karol Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Theme, Op. 10, was written during his final year as a student at the Warsaw Conservatory and dedicated to his composition teacher, Zygmunt Noskowski.

Compositional Technique

Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Theme uses a Polish folk tune as its theme, a melody taken from Jan Klecyński's O muzyce podhalańskiej (On Highland Music, 1888).

Critical Reception

Copland's Piano Variations received polarized audience responses at its 1931 New York premiere, with pianist Walter Gieseking rejecting it due to 'crude dissonances' while Leonard Bernstein called it 'prophetic'.

Critical Reception

Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Theme were premiered in 1906, with critic Aleksander Poliński acclaiming the set as 'extraordinary' and Szymanowski as 'perhaps even a genius'.