Thème et 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 As it is, there are only two works featuring solo violin, the Thème et Variations and the (unpublished) Fantaisie, both of them written for Claire Delbos in the early 1930s.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 Thème et 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, on the other hand, are by no means simple and, as the tempo rises with the first two variations, the rhythms and the textures become progressively more complicated, while the third variation is a particularly brilliant study in metrical irregularity. The impulsive fourth variation most effectively offsets the very slow 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. 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 the other dynamic extreme.