Chopin’s Mozart Variations

Frédéric Chopin wrote his variations on Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano,” a duet from Don Giovanni, when he was just seventeen and still living in his native Poland. It was the first of six major works that Chopin composed for piano and orchestra (he also prepared a version for solo piano). He premiered the variations in Vienna in 1829, and they were published the following year. The work quickly gained him recognition and acclaim. When Robert Schumann heard it in 1831, he famously exclaimed, “Hats off, gentlemen—a genius!”