15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons for piano, Op. 9 (1927) Józef Koffler

15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons for piano, Op. 9 (1927)

Piano Works, Work with Opus Number

Dedication: à Arnold Schönberg

Manuscript: ASI, WIen. Sygn.: ASI CASG86-C294

Premiere: No data available

First press mention of [radio] performance: Lwów, 28 May 1931, Leopold Münzer – piano (Kurier Lwowski 1931, no. 145)

15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons op. 9

Performer: Zygmunt Krauze – piano

Polish Radio 1963?

Rather than being a typical work of art, my Variations are a coursebook introduction to twelve-note technique, something like Bach’s Kunst der Fuge (toute proportion gardée),

Koffler wrote in 1936 (‘Twelve Notes’, Wiadomości Literackie 10 (1936), 6).

Visualization of Koffler's Variations Op. 9 with an explanation of formal structure

The composition had originated much earlier, in the summer of 1927 in Stryj, as a piano cycle dedicated to Arnold Schönberg,

Józef Koffler, 15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons for piano, Op. 9, first page of the score published by M. Senart. From the collections of the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy Library in Katowice.

to whom he sent the score and received a ‘warm letter’ in response. In 1931, Koffler created a version for string orchestra (marked as Op. 9a), which earned a much wider audience, especially since it was presented during the 1933 ISCM Festival in Amsterdam. The two versions are principally the same in terms of music material, with only minor differences resulting from instrumentation. Jerzy Freiheiter claims that ‘the orchestral score can be considered as the final version. Rather than being a transcription, it is a multidimensional implementation of the piano work’s polymorphous concept’ (Muzyka, 7–12 (1936), 86).

The work’s ‘theme’ is a semibreve series (no rhythmic pattern), presented at the start of the cycle, bearing the performance indications of piano and lento rubato.

The successive variations are almost always based on one level of series transposition. They are made up of three basic segments (marked as a–b–a in the visualization), corresponding to the prime, retrograde, and again the prime form of the row, but appearing each time in a different rhythmical and textural guise. A notable feature is the extensive use of imitative polyphony (see variations 10 and 12), as well as a tendency to construct symmetrical tone-structures.

Józef Koffler, 15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons for piano, Op. 9, variation 15. Score fragment from the collections of the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy Library in Katowice.

Józef Koffler's signature on the score page published by M. Senart. From the collections of the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy Library in Katowice.

Józef Koffler, 15 variations d'après une suite de douze sons for piano, Op. 9, variations 3-5. Score from the collections of the Karol Szymanowski Music Academy Library in Katowice.