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The University of Texas at Austin

Structure and technique of the variation genre in selected violin sonatas of Corelli, Locatelli and Tartini

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The genre of the variation has been developed a great deal since the first one was published in the sixteenth century. Because a variation’s theme is not typically long, and because it is repeated in different guises many times, it is most important for the composer to create as rich as possible a work by fully exploiting a passage’s potential for rhythmic and melodic variation, as well as the capabilities of the instrument for which it is written. The variation process and form became important in European music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in the violin repertory, with the greatly improved quality of violin-making at that time. In Italy, composers who were also violinists wrote many variations for strings from the later seventeenth to the eighteenth century. Arcangelo Corelli’s pieces are representative of variation sets, and his pupils, Pietro Antonio Locatelli and Giuseppe Tartini, also composed variations. This treatise compares variations by these seventeenth and early eighteenth century composers. In comparing these examples, the character of each composer’s style of variation can be analyzed and discussed. This treatise also focuses on the technical challenges of the violin variation of Corelli’s La Folia, Locatelli’s Op.6 and 8, and Tartini’s Op.1 and 5.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctor of Musical Arts
Level thesis:degree_level
Doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Music
Grantor
The University of Texas at Austin
Year dc:date.issued
2006

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Kwon, Yongsun, 1974-
Advisors dc:contributor.advisor
  • Dell'Antonio, Andrew
  • Gratovich, Eugene

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • Copyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/2152/12983
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/12983

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Texas
Base URL
repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Kwon, Yongsun, 1974-. Structure and technique of the variation genre in selected violin sonatas of Corelli, Locatelli and Tartini. Doctoral thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/12983