Variations for Orchestra (Cowell)

The piece, structured in five movements, uses a serialist tone row as its theme, one of the few Cowell compositions to do so.^[2] Cowell said of the theme that, though it makes use of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale, it is not developed according to the typical row technique; that it is "diatonic without following any particular mode". The harmonic language ranges freely from simple triads to large tone clusters and polychords — an evolution of the tone clusters he utilized earlier in his career.^[3]

Cowell writes as a performance note in the original manuscript:

The Variations are upon a theme, first announced in unison, which makes use of all 12 tones, but is not developed according to row technique. Neither is it in convention [sic] variations form; rather ideas from the theme are freely used and contrasted in mood, tempo and instrumentation. During the variations, each sort of instrument in the orchestra has a solo part, and each section plays as a unit alone.

Twelve-tone theme in the exposition, played by orchestral tutti

Sources

• Sachs, Joel (2012). Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510895-8.

• Variations for Orchestra, HC 833 (Henry Cowell): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Live recording (audio) on YouTube, Leon Botstein conducts American Symphony Orchestra, 2010