Variation

In order to approach the essential phenomenon of variation in music, it seems to me that we need to start from a little further back. Repetition is the first dimension of mythical thought, and becoming (development, transformation…) is the first dimension of historical thought. In myth, repetition does not imply that the listener accumulates recurring elements in his memory, to compare them with their reappearance. Such a temporal view is even alien to the mythic mind. Rather, it demands an instantaneous receptiveness that denies time, or at least is not concerned with it. Each repetition plays the role of a revealing apparition, the timeless actualisation of a permanent figure. For the instant to be charged with such fullness, the coherence of temporal sequences must be disregarded, and the openness of early childhood to any epiphany must be rediscovered.