Variation (music) - Improvised Variations

Improvised Variations

Skilled musicians can often improvise variations on a theme. This was commonplace in the Baroque era, when the da capo aria, particularly when in slow tempo, required the singer to be able to improvise a variation during the return of the main material.

Musicians of the Classical era also could improvise variations; both Mozart (see Mozart's compositional method) and Beethoven made powerful impressions on their audiences when they improvised. Modern listeners can get a sense of what these improvised variations sounded like by listening to published works that evidently are written transcriptions of improvised performances, in particular Beethoven's Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77, and Mozart's Variations on an Aria by Gluck, K. 455.

Improvisation of elaborate variations on a popular theme is one of the core genres of jazz.

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