“It’s crazy – I actually don’t like variations!” Gunilla Süssmann laughs. “Apart from certain exceptions.” Whenever she hears a theme restated ad nauseam, caught in unchanging harmonies, she finds her prejudices confirmed. “Then I feel trapped inside the music. Certain sets of variations have nevertheless managed to find their way into my repertoire.” The art of variation has close ties with the art of improvisation. Audiences revere musicians who can extemporize on a given theme, presenting it with refinement and elaborately increasing its effect. That kind of spontaneous music-making boomed in Mozart and Beethoven’s day: competitions pitting one star pianist against another were all the rage. Such improvisations gave rise to sets of variations which introduced the theme at the beginning and declined it according to skill. To score extra points with the audience, some virtuosos would choose themes from wellknown operas. Gunilla Süssmann has selected three sets of variations featuring themes with widely different origins and treated in thoroughly different ways.……."