Three oddities, part 2

Paul Dukas's impressive Variations, interlude et final sur un thème de Rameau was published in 1907. The theme is the second last number in Rameau's Pièces de clavecin, a menuet titled "Le Lardon." A simple rising line in the first strain and a slightly more complicated one in the second strain are both clear enough, though the focal tone is less so: at (a) the repeated ^5 is crossed at (b) by the left hand's ^8 (D5). This happens again in the consequent phrase. Thus, at (c) one could easily hear--in fact, I do hear--the rising line moving within a ^5-^8 frame. At (d), the contrasting middle phrase overtops D5 with F#5, but that fits into the common "one-too-many" figure and doesn't materially affect the balance in the somewhat altered reprise.

From this simple menuet emerges an abundance of character and figural variations, some of which are free ("fantasy variations") while others hold more closely to the theme. The very first variation abruptly changes the texture to one that is dense with chromatic elaborations. In the midst of this one can just catch snatches of the tune (arrow).

The ascending cadence of the theme's first strain is preserved—

 —but the figuration obscures the ending of the variation considerably (see the arrow pointing to A4 in the example below). I find it easier to hear a descent from E5 to D5: E5 is the chord tone in the first set of circled notes and connects to itself above the final tonic chord (second circled notes) and settles to D5 (third circled notes).

In contrast, variation 4 places the figuration in the left hand and preserves the melody quite clearly in the right. The first circled notes show the scalar descent from bars 3-4 of the theme, the second set the cadence of the first strain. Note that the opening of the second strain has been placed in the lower voice (bar 9, circled); the upper register is regained for the reprise and once again the ascent is largely cleared of elaboration.