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Rossini Intro, Theme and Variations

Author: kdk
Date: 2012-02-05 19:09

This week I pulled out the Rossini piece just for fun - I haven't practiced it for many years. In the past I'd played through it fairly mindlessly trying to keep the staccato and fingers light enough, etc. - all technical thoughts and not much about the music. Today I suddenly realized something I'd never thought about, though it seems obvious now that I've noticed: there are no repeats in the theme, but the variations, the Largo minore excepted, all have both sections repeated. I can imagine that the repeats gave the soloist more opportunity to show off, but then why not in the theme as well?

Without taking the time to rifle through all the scores, my impression is that the classical variations I've played generally have either repeats in the theme and in the variations or none at all. In the clarinet literature, the Weber Concertino is an interesting case. In the Henle edition, which includes both an "urtext" version and an edition made by Carl Baermann from his father's performances of the piece, the urtext has no repeats. Baermann added repeats to the first section of the theme and to both variations, but not to the second sections. In either case, the variations are consistent with the theme.

Is the inconsistency in Rossini an editorial problem, an aberration on Rossini's part, or a not-so-uncommon practice that's just struck me as odd?

Karl

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