Variations Op. 12

Variations brillantes sur le rondeau favori “Je vends des Scapulaires” de Hérold et Halévy, Op.12

In spite of the fact that it was in the Variations on Là ci darem la mano, Op.2, that Schumann recognised Chopin’s youthful genius, the theme-and-variations from was not one in which he excelled. Chopin was clearly aware of that himself since he wrote his last work of this kind, based on a theme from Hérold’s opera Ludovic, as early as 1833 - and even then, one imagines, under commerical pressure from his publisher. The opera, which was left unfinished when Hérold died and was completed by Halévy, was first performed in Paris in May 1833. It was such a success and the rondeau (“Je vends des scapulaires et de pieux rosaires”) was such a favourite that Chopin, Herz, Hünten and Pixis all hastened to write fantasias or variations on it. Chopin’s bid, the Variations brillantes, was announced in Paris as early as July 1833 but, although the score was published in Leipzig in November, it was not issued in France until the beginning of the following year.

The stylishly brilliant introduction was obviously written on the assumption that every one knows the tune. Today’s audience will be less likely to recognise the veiled allusions to “Je vends des scapulaires” than to welcome the characteristic Chopin figurations which occur here and there. The theme itself is a 6/8 melody of ternary shape, disarmingly simple in the outer sections and more complicated in the middle. Chopin preserves the same basic shape in his first variation, with the melody conventionally “concealed” in the right hand in even semiquavers. The vague echo of Schumann in the descending figure inserted between the theme and the first variation sounds, when it is repeated before the next variation, like a deliberate allusion to Carnaval. And the second variation itself could almost be parody of the serious German kind, with the same rhythmic pattern repeated in every one of the twenty-two bars. The third variation, in the minor, touchingly begins and ends like a Chopin nocturne, finally dissolving incongruously but wittily into a capricious scherzo finale.