Piano4t Variations
[ Home ] [ Up ]

 

 

All Students preparing for Grade exams are recommended to use the Hofnotes on-line training pages to practise for the aural tests. 

At higher grades  you must be able to discuss with the examiner musical features such as texture, form, style, and period of a piece of music.  My own  web pages to help with these parts of the test at Grade 5+ and at GCSE are available here!

 

 

 

 

 

A Theme, usually fairly short and simple, treated in more and more interesting ways.

The elements that can be changed include:

  • melody line and ornamentation
  • rhythm
  • tonality
  • harmony
  • placement of the melody (in bass instead of treble)
  • texture

Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, played here by Grygory Sokolov, are one of the most famous examples for piano solo:

Playthe theme

Playvariation 3

Playvariation 11

Playvariation 16

 

Play through Beethoven's Sonata No 10 in G (second movement) for an enjoyable example of variations form.

Composer and teacher Denes Agay, in his Joy of .... series, offers this set of variations in the style of the great composers.

Play