Variations concertantes sur le nom de Paul Verlaine pour basson et orchestre: "Vive Verlaine!" ("De la musique avant toute chose")

(Concert Variations on the Name of Paul Verlaine for Bassoon and Orchestra: "Long Live Verlaine!" ("Music Before All Else")

Var. No. 6 by Warren Park.

"De la musique avant toute chose / Et pour cela préfère l'impair / Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air, / Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose...." ("Let there be music before all else / And for that reason prefer unusual rhythms / Vaguer and more soluble in the air / With nothing too weighty or affected....")

My short variation—"Vive Verlaine!"—is designed to be a departure from the serious and dramatic music that some of the other variations properly offer. This is more playful and light-hearted, the only movement to use a da capo repeat and all pizzicato in the strings. To me this represents/conveys Verlaine's feeling that music is of utmost importance in all its forms, a unique and healthy organism for everyone to relish. Also, the four quick eighth notes in a row that I use as a motif imply to me a crowd's cheer: Vive Verlaine!