Karim Al-Zand: Music: Variations

Variations

on a theme of Bartòk for viola & piano

The piece is a short ‘theme and variations’ using as its theme a melody from Bela Bartòk’s Concerto for Orchestra. The first tune heard in the Intermezzo movement of that work is a lilting, folk-like melody that alternates measures of four and five beats. Bartòk’s melody is remarkable in that it has very little harmonic motion and quite limited pitch material, occasionally repeating a pattern of only three or four notes. Consequently, the five variations of the piece are, in a sense, ‘metric variations,’ since they focus on exploring contrasting rhythmic patterns, layered between the parts.

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