[Op. 31]. Variationen für Orchestra [Study score]

Wien: Universal Edition [U.E. 12196], 1929. Octavo. Original publisher's wrappers. 1f. (title, notes), 3-80 pp.

Wrappers slightly worn and soiled. Light browning throughout. First Edition in this format. Rufer (E), pp. 52-53.

"... the variations are vividly differentiated from one another by individual sound spectrums, at times reminiscent of chamber music and at others reaching the extreme complexity of rich scoring for the full orchestra. The twelve-tone method used in Op. 31 is based on a hierarchic equivalence of the pitch material in a basic row related to the conventional idea of a theme, also employing inversion and transpositions derived from that row. The genuinely rigid schemata breaks forth with emphasis by distributing the pitches of the row among various instruments, resulting in the individual voices producing motifs whose pitch progressions need not correspond to those fixed in the row's structure." Therese Muxeneder © Arnold Schönberg Center.