Variations on a theme in DM

Variations on a theme in D major in the late classical style. 

Congratulations!  This is a remarkable and substantial achievement from you considering that most of your pieces are short minuets.  Your variations are quite creative and far-reaching while still staying related to the original theme!  For a classically styled theme and variations piece I'd say you're right on the mark.  If you wanted to take your variations even farther away and explore more remote possibilities of the theme you could have changed the time signature, mode (those two in combination are my favorite variation to make), tempo, texture (maybe by using more extreme registers of the piano?) or construct a completely new melody by fragmenting and splicing your original theme and re-combining it into something new (or reversing or inverting some parts of the melody).  I did notice you varied the structure and rhythmic patterns and figurations and accompaniment patterns though.

Although throughout most of the piece, the repeats seem appropriate, I would have let the piece finish without repeating the last variation because it devalues the sense of finally reaching the long awaited conclusion.  It's like "Yay, here's the end!  Oh no - here we go again!"  Anyways - those are my tips (although I admittedly should listen more to some of my own tips when writing variations myself LoL).  It was an enjoyable piece.  Thanks for sharing!

Thank you Peter, its a long piece and I appreciate you taking your time to review it. 

The limitations of the software I use mean only one tempo for the whole file which sucks but I did intend two of the variations to be played andante. A friend of mine is learning to play the piece so I will upload a recording soon, I have a draft recording and it sounds great on the kawai grand. 

I like your variation ideas and will bear them in mind when I compose another set of variations. I think Brahms recommended student-composers to compose sets of variations and I can see why because it pushes you to explore the possibilities of each aspect of music such as harmony, tempo etc within the confines of the theme. 

That was really impressive! I loved it! Like PaperComposer said, it is indeed a remarkable achievement.

I really loved the main theme! It was packed with chromatic notes (and really beautiful ones), secondary dominants and modulations. However, I also felt that same complexity limited the possibilities for variations. I really enjoyed it (particularly the B section) and all the variations, but could not avoid getting the feeling that a simpler theme might have allowed you to explore a larger range of possibilities (since all variations focused mostly on rhythm, figuration and accompaniment pattern changes).

That said, it is really great as it is! Variation 2 was one of my favorites and I loved the part in which the right hand jumped over the left. You seem to have improved harmony and rhythm so much! Congratulations!

PD: I saw that there is also a live piano version of the piece. I listened to this one first as I believe the other one did not include all the variations. I will listen to that one too as soon as I can!

1 hour ago, JorgeDavid said:

That was really impressive! I loved it! Like PaperComposer said, it is indeed a remarkable achievement.

Thank you, Jorge! I learnt a lot taking on a bigger project and its made me want to study more so that my next big project is better. 

1 hour ago, JorgeDavid said:

I really loved the main theme! It was packed with chromatic notes (and really beautiful ones), secondary dominants and modulations. However, I also felt that same complexity limited the possibilities for variations. I really enjoyed it (particularly the B section) and all the variations, but could not avoid getting the feeling that a simpler theme might have allowed you to explore a larger range of possibilities (since all variations focused mostly on rhythm, figuration and accompaniment pattern changes).

I was pleased with the theme at first, I went through so many variants until I found something suitable except I lacked the experience to understand how the theme would impact my variation options and how difficult the B section would become where the harmony wasn't as clear as it could have been. I can see why the Goldberg variations are over a bass line. 

1 hour ago, JorgeDavid said:

That said, it is really great as it is! Variation 2 was one of my favorites and I loved the part in which the right hand jumped over the left. You seem to have improved harmony and rhythm so much! Congratulations!

PD: I saw that there is also a live piano version of the piece. I listened to this one first as I believe the other one did not include all the variations. I will listen to that one too as soon as I can!

 

Barry, the retired professor I found on youtube that agreed to play my piece liked the 2nd variation best too. Its fun to play with the hand crossing and the constant triplets. He helped me polish the piece with regards to the odd note hear and there and developed appropriate dynamics where the score was lacking. 

Thank you for taking time to listen to it. The lessons I learned from composing it and the feedback i got were; keep it simple to broaden the variation possibilities, use the full range of the piano in terms of its register, take bolder risks with the variations, use dynamics to create contrast and tension, use changes in mode and time signature for the furthest contrast from the theme, and compose within my range of playing ability. With the last one I was almost there, just a struggle with the faster left hand variations.