Variations in B flat minor Op.3 (1901–03)

Both Szymanowski’s sets of piano variations, in B flat minor Op.3 and B minor Op.10, were written when the composer was in his early twenties. That was a decade before the sensualist in him was liberated by his experience of Mediterranean cultures and the impressionist in him was awakened by contact with Debussy and Ravel in Paris. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that the variations – and other piano works of the same period, like the Etudes Op.4 and the Sonata No.1 in C minor Op.8 – seem to be the work of a composer quite different from that of Métopes Op.29 and Masques Op.34.

It would be wrong to assume however – although the assumption is often made – that, because Poland could offer a Warsaw student only one internationally significant role model, Szymanowski’s early works are imitations of Chopin. While a Chopin influence is certainly to be heard, it is not the dominant stylistic feature of these early works, which are written by a composer who, clearly, knew not only Schumann and Brahms but also Scriabin and Richard Strauss. At the same time he has a technically fearless personality of his own. He also has an interesting approach to structure, even in a form as inhibited by convention as the theme and variations.

The theme (Andante tranquillo) of the Op.3 Variations is a gloomy sort of chorale set, with the occasional gently dissonant chromaticism, in B flat minor, in quadruple time and in a structure of two parts of eight bars each. Conventionally, the variations would share the same harmonic, metrical and structural characteristics. Variation No.1 (also Andantino tranquillo), which shares the theme between the two hands in the middle of the keyboard, is conventional at least in that respect. So is the vividly contrasted No.2 (Agitato). An interesting departure, however, is made No.3 (Andantino quasi tempo di mazurka), and not only by way of its triple-time metre. The structure is extended to introduce a drone B flat and a motif of chromatically descending parallel thirds in the right hand before the melodic line is squeezed between it and the left. A change of texture in the middle eight bars secure a clear if asymmetrical ternary shape.

The mere eight bars of lightly articulated staccato octaves in No.4 (Con moto) most effectively offset the melodiously effusive legato of No.5 (Lento dolce) and are taken up again, though now in triple time with the left-hand phrasing out of step with the right, in No.6 (Scherzando, molto vivace). Triple time prevails in the stormy No.7 (Allegro agitato ed energico), the funereal No.8 (Meno mosso, mesto) and the far from Chopinesque waltz in B flat major of No.9 (Tempo di valse, grazioso). Having effected the change to the major, Szymanowski stays with it in the G flat harmonies of the dreamy No.10 (Andantino dolce) and the B flat of No.11 (Andantino dolce affetuoso) – a highly imginative episode which, by means of a kind of metrical modulation, begins in triple time and ends in duple time. The extended variation No.12 (Allegro con fuoco) seizes on the newly established duple time in a Schumannesque toccata of even semiquavers which somehow finds room on the keyboard for a triumphantly transformed version of the opening theme, passing between left hand and right, before the massively scored Maestoso ending.