Experiments in style: variations

A musical interlude

Greetings!

As you may know, I’ve been writing the same story in a different style every week. This was inspired by Raymond Queneau’s book, Exercises in Style. You can read about that, and other interesting books, here: Experiments in style.

But did you know that Queneau had the idea from Bach’s Goldberg Variations? I remembered that a few days ago, when I came across another musical variation on Youtube. It reminded me that I’ve always enjoyed variations, whether it’s reimagining Shakespeare’s plays, turning War of the Worlds into a musical, or modernising classical music.

I thought it might be of interest to share some of these other variations with you here. Normal service will be resumed next week!

Paganini Caprice #24 in A Minor

This is the original:

And here is Julian Lloyd Webber’s version:

Funky Town original disco version

Funky Town ACDC style

Also Sprach Zarathustra original version

Also Sprach Zarathustra jazz version

(Not all of the performance is shown here, but it will give you the idea!)

The War of the Worlds

For my penultimate example, here is Jeff Wayne’s musical version of the H G Wells classic. I love Richard Burton’s velvet voice. It lasts for nearly two hours, so make yourself a cup of tea!

And here’s a clip from the 1953 movie, which I always thought was better than the remake with Tom Cruise.

There are loads of variations, especially in music. Not all of them work terribly well in my opinion, but I think they can introduce old classics to a new audience.

I also believe that the process of writing or making variations is a very good way of stretching your creative muscles. When I ran a course on the Oulipo, I included a rewriting/variation segment and it was hugely enjoyable for the whole group. I’ll be doing that again the next time I run the course, which will be on the 8th June 2024 if you’re interested.

The last variation I’d like to include here is András Schiff playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

I’ll be back next week with another version of my story “A bang on the head”. In the meantime you can explore other versions here: Index.

If you’re interested in how I create these variations, you can obtain glimpses behind the scenes by becoming a paid subscriber.

For example, in a few days’ time I will be delving a little deeper and wider on the subject of musical variations.