Unraveling Tonic Identity and Function in Reger’s “Mozart” Variations
David J. Heetderks · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025
Abstract Max Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), along with the final movement of his Violin Sonata, no. 9 (1915), represent a novel approach to variation technique. These works transform the original theme not by embellishing melodies and developing motives, as in earlier variation sets, but by altering the theme’s tonal organization. They reconceive and deconstruct the concept of tonic that earlier music theory takes as a given in a Classical-era theme. A tonic is typically established through several musical features that operate in tandem, including harmonic syntax, voice leading, melodic outline, and phrase structure. Reger’s variations selectively isolate and alter these features, as this chapter demonstrates through analyses that draw from form-functional theory, chromatic harmonic function, voice-leading reduction, and theories of tonality in popular music. Reger’s variations raise the question whether the component parts of tonality necessarily belong together, or whether they are grouped only contingently.