Variations on a theme of Paganini

Lutosławski composed his Variations on a Theme of Paganini for two pianos in 1941. The work was performed many times with his duo partner and fellow Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik in cafés throughout Nazi-occupied Warsaw. In 1978, he produced an arrangement for piano and orchestra that was first performed in Florida the following year. In essence, it’s a brilliant paraphrase of Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin, which is itself constructed as a theme followed by several variations that are widely contrasted in mood and tempo. Lutosławski retains much of Paganini’s original material, but subjects it to increasingly sophisticated elaboration, using extremes of the piano register, punctuating the harmony with spicy dissonances, and disrupting the music’s regular pulse with off-beat syncopations. Near the animated coda, Lutosławski adds a new 12th variation in which the Paganini theme is pounded out slowly in octaves in tandem with an equally percussive and rhythmically insistent accompaniment.