April 2025: pianist Jakob Fichert gave the premiere of Variation Tapestry I – a composed programme of variation works – at Late Music York. This piece is another collaborative project although with a shorter backstory than some dating only as far back as 2023!
The roman numeral attached to the title is important here because it denotes Variation Tapestry as a piece expressly designed to exist in different versions, in fact it could almost be said to constitute a procedure for making a piece rather than a musical work in its own right. For this first outing Jakob and I decided to present the tapestry as a series of panels in which a pair of variation-type pieces was interwoven. The four panels comprised:
- Copland Variations – Armstrong Dance Maze: Variations
- Von Albrecht Piano Sonata in C Minor 2: Adagio – Stevenson Passacaglia on DSCH: Tempo di valse, Lento lamentoso
- Schumann Études in the form of free variations on a theme of Beethoven – Beethoven trans. Liszt Symphony No. 7 in A Major 2: Allegretto
- Bartók Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs: 3 & 8 – Leighton Nine Variations: 2 & 4
Within each panel the pieces are woven together, sometimes alternating sections, sometimes embedded within each other. The process of weaving involved finding points to segue from one piece to another, guided by a strategy of non-intervention under which changes to the originals were avoided unless absolutely necessary. The result is a composition process that is about working with large pre-existing blocks of material, composing at a much lower resolution, hence the ‘composed programme’.
Although Jakob left the weaving to me he was instrumental in suggesting much of the repertoire, in particular Schumann’s wonderful études/variations on Beethoven’s 7th symphony (the Allegretto of which is itself a chaconne-type variation movement). Jakob also introduced me to Busoni’s 3rd elegy with its chorale prelude variation form. In fact when we began this project back in March 2023 we made a huge list of potential pieces including variations by Henze and Reger (both recommended by Jakob), Bartók dirges, pieces by John Adams and Steve Crowther as well as two sets of variations on Walsingham by Byrd and Bull. The joy of our project is that, with sufficient thought, trial and error, any work can be woven together with any other making Variation Tapestry a wonderfully open-ended antidote to the delimited ‘works’ that still tend to dominate most recitals.
Mine and Jakob’s ultimate aim is a continuous programme of interwoven music so the next stage of our collaboration is to break down the four panels by locating multiple points of connection and by reintroducing music we had to leave out for York due to time restrictions (the Byrd and Bull Walsinghams, the Busoni Elegy). Variation Tapestry started as a way of collaborating with Jakob to provide a programme context for my own Dance Maze: Variations but it has led some way beyond this somewhat limited goal and now looks towards a more fluid and collaborative approach to the classical piano recital.
