This is a light-hearted, melodic, and easily communicative work, written on a commission from an American publisher of music for high schools and colleges. Korngold's widow remembered that the composer repeated, "Opus forty-two. From the time I was a boy I knew I would not make it beyond opus forty-two." She insisted that if they countedhis film scores (he had been Hollywood's leading composer for a dozen years beginning in the 1930s) he was well above that number. At any rate, Korngold was right; this was the last original work before he became too ill to work.

Korngold directs that the main theme be played in the manner of an Irish folk melody, but it is an original theme of his own. The seven variations in this brief piece (eight or nine minutes) are attractive and clearly set apart by instrumentaion. One variation seems to be a reminiscence of one of Korngold's scores for an Erroll Flynn movie.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide