Theme with Variations in B flat major
(Thema und Variationen) op. 3 (1921-22)for orchestra
Duration: 16'
Scoring
3(III=picc).2.2.2-4.3.3.1-timp.perc:tgl/cyms/BD-cel(ad lib)-pft(ad lib)-strings
Abbreviations (PDF)
Publisher
VAAP
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes
/ Sikorski for the UK, British Commonwealth (excluding Canada), Republic of Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Israel.
Availability
Programme Note
Repertoire Note
These charming, if rather old-fashioned variations on an original theme, were written during Shostakovich’s student days when he was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov’s son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg. They are worth hearing, not only because they show the teenager’s increasing mastery of the sound of the orchestra, but because they contain one or two surprises that must have shocked the excessively conservative Steinberg.
Note by Gerard McBurney