Theme and Variations (1932)

Messiaen wrote little for the violin. Had his marriage to his first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos, lasted longer - she died in 1959 after a long illness - the situation might have been different: certainly, his association with the pianist Yvonne Loriod, whom he married in 1962, inspired a whole series of works for solo piano or for piano and ensemble. As it is, there are only two works featuring solo violin, the Theme and Variations and the (unpublished) Fantaisie, both of them written for Claire Delbos in the early 1930s.

      Uncharacteristic though it is in that respect, and even though it dates from an early period in his development, the Theme and Variations is unmistakable Messiaen. The chromatic harmonies and the deliberate rhythm of repeated crotchets in the piano part as the violin introduces the sentimentally thoughtful theme above it, the intervals in the melodic line itself, all these betray the identity of the composer. So too does the simple, even naive overall structure of the piece. The harmonies of the individual variations are by no means simple and, as the tempo rises with the first two variations, the rhythms and the textures become progressively more complicated. The third variation is a particularly brilliant study in metrical irregularity with anticipations of the brightly percussive piano writing and the ejaculatory phrasing associated with the bird-song imitations of the mature Messiaen.

      The rhythmically impulsive fourth variation is the quickest of all - the basic idea being to make the maximum effect by contrast with the very slow pace of the fifth and last variation, which presents the theme in something like its original shape but far more ceremoniously, the violin at the top of its range and at the top of its voice, the piano projecting now more robust harmonies in even crotchets at the extreme dynamic level of ffff! At the end, as the violin gradually climbs down from its high position on the E-string to low on the G-string, the volume drops to a whispered ppp.

Theme: Modéré

Variation 1: Modéré –

Variation 2: Modéré, un peu vif –

Variation 3: Modéré, avec éclat –

Variation 4: Vif et passionné –

Variation 5: Très lent

Messiaen wrote little for the violin. Had his marriage to his first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos, lasted longer and had she remained in good health – she died in 1959 after a long illness – the situation might have been different. Certainly, his association with the pianist Yvonne Loriod, whom he married in 1962, inspired a whole series of works for solo piano or for piano and ensemble. As it is, there are only two works featuring solo violin, the (long-lost and recently rediscovered) Fantaisie    and the Théme et Variations, both of them written for Claire Delbos in the early 1930s. The fist performance of the latter work, a wedding present, was given by the dedicatee accompanied by the composer at the Cercle Musical de Paris in November 1932.

Even though it dates from an early period in his development, the Thème et Variations is unmistakably by Olivier Messiaen, not least because of the clear anticipations of the Quatuor pour la fin de temps he was to write, in very different circumstances, eight or nine years later. The deliberate rhythm of repeated crotchets in the piano part, as the violin introduces the thoughtful theme above it, gives a hint of the composer’s identity. The distinctive piano harmonies at the point where the accompanying rhythm changes for a few bars confirm it. The extended theme (it lasts about two minutes) gives rise to five similarly sustained variations, the first four of which follow a gradually rising tempo scheme. Variation 1 is an interesting and increasingly dissonant development of harmonies inherited from Debussy, Variation 2 a kind of scherzo with intricate double cannons in its second half. Variation 3 secures particularly brilliant sounds from the two instruments, the metre changing on an ingenious bar-by-bar basis, and the “quick and passionate” Varation 4 generates the momentum which is so dramatically held back on the transition to Variation 5. In this last – the longest, slowest and, for much of its duration, the loudest of all – the violin ceremonially recalls the original theme, an octave higher than before, over eight-note or even, at the ffff climax of the work, ten-note chords, which succeed each other in the regular crotchet rhythm familiar from the beginning but at a much slower tempo.    At the end, as the violin gradually climbs down from its position high on on the E-string to low on the G-string, the volume drops to a whispered ppp.