We have Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's sister, Lyudmilla Shestakova, to thank for the survival of the little set of Variations in E flat major on a theme from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte; it turns out that the work, which can be played on either piano or—in keeping with the flavor of Mozart's famous original tune—harp, was lost after Glinka composed it sometime during 1822 - 1827, and Shestakova later rewrote the piece from memory so that it might be published. 1822 was the last year of Glinka's schooling in St. Petersburg, and he was about to embark not on a musical career but rather a career as a civil servant. Though he was still almost wholly self-taught as a composer at the time he wrote them (he would remain that way until the 1830s, when he went to Berlin for serious lessons), Glinka's Zauberflöte Variations are nevertheless charming, graceful, and cosmopolitan in flavor.

It is impossible to know if Glinka's sister tinkered with the music at all as she recreated it, or for that matter if her memory was entirely reliable. But the set is not a long one—after the theme there are but three variations and a coda—and it would not be too difficult for a keen musician who had at some point learned to play the music to write it all down. The truth of the matter is that if Shestakova changed the music at all it is likely that she changed it for the better, considering Glinka's own nominal skills during the 1820s and relative suavity of the finished product. Each of Glinka's three variations has its own clear and distinct rhythmic nature: Variation I is filled with sixteenths, Variation II with triplets (in velvety thirds and sixths), Variation III in unhurried sixteenth-note sextuplets, which the coda then takes up as its own.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.