Variaciones sobre un tema de Prokofiev / Variations on a theme by Prokofiev

For Bassoon and Piano

Commentary
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Commentary

My children's taste for Peter and the Wolf, by Sergei Prokofiev, and the repeated auditions of the work to which they subjected me for a long time during their childhood, ended up having a direct influence on my music of those years, whose echoes can even be appreciated in the most recent works. The famous "Cat Theme" is present in several of my works (such as the Gloss for two voices on a cantus firmus, from the Seven pieces for piano, from 1987, Catdenza for solo clarinet, from 2003, and the music for the silent film by Segundo de Chomón Puss in boots, within the work Tour de Manivelle, written for the concert-projection of the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 2008), and among the various projects for the future -which have not yet materialized due to the need to attend to more urgent commitments- is to compose a cycle of variations on themes from Peter and the Wolf, for flute and piano, oboe and piano, clarinet and piano, and bassoon and piano, based respectively on the themes of the Bird , the Duck, the Cat and the Grandfather.

Sergei Prokofiev. The "Grandfather Theme" of Peter and the Wolf (1936)

This idea dates back to 1986, and arises precisely from what will eventually be the last of the cycle, the Variations on a Theme by Prokofiev for Bassoon and Piano. The work is structured within a classic formal plan of a theme followed by six variations, in which the different technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument have a place, in an alternation between the lyrical character and the scherzante. Te piece ends with a majestic coda, in which the theme of the Grandfather is restated in canon between both instruments.

Beginning of the Variations on a theme by Prokofiev

The Variations on a Theme by Prokofiev were written in May 1986 and premiered in February 1987 at the Madrid Fine Arts Circle, by the bassoonist Marco Caratto and the pianist Sebastián Mariné, and are doubly dedicated to their two main instigators: the bassoonist Rudesindo Fernández Soutelo and my son Luis, who was three years old at the time.

Cover and inner page of the program of the premiere
of the Variations on a theme by Prokofiev

First page of the Variations on a theme by Prokofiev

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(Score and part without watermarks available at www.asesores-musicales.com )