In its most restricted historical sense, a series of compositions or sections of a composition generally for the organ in which the same chorale melody is presented several times in succession, each time in a different polyphonic arrangement (e.g. as a chorale ricercare, a long-note cantus firmus surrounded by a variety of contrapuntal voices and patterns, a simple harmonized tune). Chorale variations were cultivated most extensively in the early 17th century, chiefly by Sweelinck, Scheidt and Scheidemann. With the exception of Sweelinck’s variations, which are connected by transitional passages, it is not certain that the early 17th-century chorale variation set was intended to be performed in its entirety as an integral cycle. Since the 18th century the term has been used interchangeably with ‘chorale partita’, and the distinctions between the two genres have disappeared.
See Chorale settings.
ROBERT L. MARSHALL