The influence of composition pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, with whom Copland studied in Paris at the Fontainebleau School of Music for Americans, is prevalent in the formal style, logic, patterns, and attention to detail in the Piano Variations and other works in this period.
Copland acknowledged this contradiction but maintained that, in fact, "One fine day when the time was right, the order of the variations fell into place.
Copland regarded pianist Walter Gieseking very highly for his refined tone and subtle coloration, especially in the performance of Debussy, and insisted that no one else could give a satisfactory premiere of his masterpiece.
"[This quote needs a citation] The cold, hard tone of Copland's playing at the premiere, far from that of a concert pianist, lent a sharper edge to an already austere work.
Leonard Bernstein later reported that he adored the piece, which was "hard as nails", and also used it at parties to "empty the room, guaranteed, in two minutes".
The New York Herald Tribune reported that, in the piece, Copland "sardonically thumbed his nose at all those esthetic attributes which have hitherto been considered essential to the creation of music".
[10] They are continuously played through, in an undisrupted development of the seven-note "row" in the theme from which Copland builds the rest of the piece, "in what I hope is a consistently logical way".
In the Piano Variations, some notes are held down silently while pitches selected from their overtone series are struck, which produces an effect of ringing resonances without hammering the tones directly.