“This piece is short, exciting-and audiences love it. I like the way the medieval Dies Irae plainchant theme shows up: first very quietly on the piano (in Variation 7), and then marching (in Variation 10) before it goes off-beat and jazzy. And listen to the way the harmony changes before it opens up into the famous 18th Variation, in which the main theme is turned upside down. The last Variation, No. 24, has so much humour with its playful leaps in the piano. I think Rachmaninoff must have been a great improviser to have come up with this; it has such spontaneity.”
—Yujia Wang
‘Seductive’—that’s how variation