Diabelli Variations

"Variations on a waltz for Klawier alone (there are many)." These words almost seem to be an understatement, with which Beethoven described his 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli op. 120 is mentioned. He was inspired to write this truly monumental composition at the beginning of 1819, when the Viennese music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) approached a whole series of composers and pianists working in Austria with the request to write a joint work for each of them. one variation on a waltz that he had designed for this purpose. Beethoven must also have received this invitation - however, his creative imagination, and presumably also his compositional ambition, was so stimulated by the given theme that a large number of variations were already sketched out after just a few months. Busy completing other works, however, Beethoven then left them lying around for almost four years; it was not until April 1823 that he finally completed the autograph. Nevertheless, he managed to catch up with Diabelli and his original plan: The 33 Changes op. 120 appeared in print in June 1823; the joint work consisting of 50 variations, on the other hand, only appeared a year later under the title Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Changes for the pianoforte on a presented theme.

In contrast to this singular collective print, in which the individual contributions are arranged alphabetically according to the names of the composers as in an encyclopaedia, Beethoven based his composition on a well-calculated overall arrangement and thus created not just a series of variations, but a self-contained cycle. The complexity of its structure is shown by the variety of possible arrangements. Seen from the outside, the cycle appears to be an almost symmetrically ordered sequence of groups of four variations each (with the exception of the last, No. 33). Depending on the parameter or aspect, however, other classifications are also possible that go far beyond the standardized models of the time. Beethoven already makes a break with the theme in the first variation: it is headed alla Marcia maestoso it decisively ensures a proper distance. As the work progresses, it is often only individual motifs, harmonic progressions or rhythmic and melodic elements that make the reference back audibly comprehensible. The accumulated energy is finally released in a weighty double fugue in which Beethoven leaves the tonal framework of C major (and the C minor variant) for the first time. Variation 33 is more than just an epilogue at the end with its peculiarly serene, almost transcendental serenity.

Even Hans von Bülow (1830-1894), who for decades was considered "unplayable" as an interpreter of the Diabelli Variations hardly found words for this summum opus of the art of variation: for him it was the "A microcosm of Beethoven's genius in general, even a reflection of the entire tonal world in excerpt."

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