Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 2

"Hats off, gentlemen, here is a genius!" — the winged words about Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) were written in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Musik from nascent critic Robert Schumann on the occasion of Chopin's Opus 2 – Variations on Là ci darem la mano diet from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Chopin composed his first work for piano and orchestra at the age of 18 as a task in composition. At the time, he was studying at the Independent Conservatory harmony and counterpoint with Józef Elsner, the greatest musical authority in Warsaw. As is the case with every talented young man, "local praise" was not sufficient for him; he dreamed of wider horizons – to hear what audiences thought of him in Vienna and Paris. With his teacher's encouragement, in July 1829 he left for Vienna. He had already sent to Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger his Variations on the theme by Mozart. They had not yet been published, but as a "live" advertisement he performed them at a concert organized under the patronage of Count Gallenberg, manager of the Imperial Theatres. It took place on August 11 at the Theater am Kärntnertor Together with op. 2, Chopin improvised for the audience, and on August 18 played his Rondo ala Krakowiak, his second piece, written for piano and orchestra. One critic noted: "Chopin surprised everyone because he displayed supreme talent, considering the originality of his compositions and play..." Although he drove audiences to raptures, they were taken aback by the fact that he "played too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here," as Chopin wrote in a letter to his parents. And to the critics he said: "This is my way of playing, and it appeals enormously to women." For his variations set in the fashionable "brilliant" style, the composer chose a theme from Mozart's operatic masterpiece, Don Giovanni, more specifically from the duet of the great seducer with the pretty and coquettish village girl Tzerlina in which he tries to charm her. The form consists of an introduction on the basic motive of Mozart's theme in B-flat Major, a dimmer and more dramatic key than the sparkling original A Major. The subject is stated in exposition without any preparation whatsoever, as if Chopin, completely in the spirit of the opera, intended to outline the clash between the demonic and the protagonist 's daring, exuberant taste for adventures. One after the other follow five variations – technically spectacular and challenging, framed by ritornello. Chopin told his parents: "After every variation, there was such applause that I could not hear the orchestra." The finale – Alla Polacca (polonaise), arrives after the expressive variation in tempo Adagio and closes the work in shining brilliance. The variations on Mozart's Là ci darem la mano are dedicated to Tytus Woyciechowski, the devoted friend from the lyceum. Besides Schumann, Friedrich Wieck, the strict piano pedagogue, was astonished by the imagination and courage displayed by Chopin in this Opus 2 and his daughter Clara (a famous pianist in the 19th century and the future wife of Schumann) repeatedly performed the work which is rarely heard nowadays. A tendency I his early music, traceable also in the Variations, is that Chopin gives prominence to the piano as a concert instrument surrounded by a multicolored but not a very active orchestra. Immediately after his Vienna trip, he created his two piano concertos, but quickly and conclusively turned to purely keyboard music (etudes, ballads, mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, nocturnes, preludes, sonatas, etc.). For him it was self-sufficient to convey with the power of its unique and unparalleled technique the cult of the "singing" piano - a rich palette of dazzling acoustic arabesques, sensual harmonies, plastic metro-rhythm and exquisite and profoundly penetrating emotions.