Diabelli Variations

Theme of the Variations - Diabelli's Waltz

The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli. One of the supreme compositions for the piano, it often shares the highest honours with Bach's Goldberg Variations. Pianist Alfred Brendel has described it as simply "the greatest of all piano works.". It also comprises, in the words of Hans von Bülow, "a microcosm of Beethoven's art." Or, as Martin Cooper writes in Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817 - 1827, ^[1] "The variety of treatment is almost without parallel, so that the work represents a book of advanced studies in Beethoven's manner of expression and his use of the keyboard, as well as a monumental work in its own right."

Background

The work was composed after Diabelli, a well known music publisher and composer, sent a simple waltz in or near 1819 to all the important composers of Austria, including Franz Schubert, Carl Czerny, the child Franz Liszt and the Archduke Rudolph, asking each of them to write a variation on it. His plan was to publish all the variations in a patriotic volume and to use the profits to benefit orphans and widows of the Napoleonic Wars. Beethoven had had a connection with Diabelli for a number of years. About a slightly earlier period, 1815, Beethoven's authoritative biographer, Alexander Thayer, writes, "Diabelli, born near Salzburg in 1781, had now been for some years one of the more prolific composers of light and pleasing music, and one of the best and most popular teachers in Vienna. He was much employed by Steiner and Co., as copyist and corrector, and in this capacity enjoyed much of Beethoven's confidence, who also heartily liked him as a man." ^[2] At the time of his project for variations on a theme of his own by various composers, Diabelli had advanced to become a partner in the publishing firm of Cappi and Diabelli. ^[3]

The oft-told but now questionable story of the origins of this work is that Beethoven at first refused categorically to participate in Diabelli's project, dismissing the theme as banal, a Schusterfleck or 'cobbler's patch,' ^[4] unworthy of his time. Not long afterwards, according to the story, upon learning that Diabelli would pay a handsome price for a full set of variations from him, Beethoven changed his mind and decided to show how much could be done with such slim materials. (In another version of the legend, Beethoven was so insulted at being asked to work with material he considered beneath him that he wrote 33 variations in order to demonstrate his prowess.) Today, however, this story is taken as more legend than fact. Its origins are with Anton Schindler, Beethoven's unreliable biographer, whose account conflicts in a number of ways with several established facts, indicating that he did not have first-hand knowledge of events. ^[5]

At some point or other Beethoven certainly did accept Diabelli's proposal, but rather than contributing a single variation on the theme he conceived a large set of variations. In order to begin work he laid aside his sketching of the Missa Solemnis, completing sketches for four variations by early 1819. (Schindler was so far off the marks that he claimed, "At the most, he worked three months on it, during the summer of 1823."^[6] Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven, claimed that "Beethoven wrote these Variations in a merry freak."^[7]) By the middle of 1819 he had completed almost two-thirds of the set of thirty-three. In February of 1820, in a letter to the publisher Simrock, he mentioned "grand variations," as yet incomplete. The work was left incomplete for several years - something Beethoven rarely did - while he returned to the Missa Solemnis and worked on his late piano sonatas. In June of 1822 Beethoven offered to Peters "Variations on a waltz for pianoforte alone (there are many)." In the autumn of the same year he was in negotiations with Diabelli, writing to him, "The fee for the Variat. should be 40 ducats at the most if they are worked out on as large a scale as planned, but if this should not take place, it would be set for less." By March or April of 1823 the full set of thirty-three variations was finished. ^[8] Diabelli published it quickly in June of the same year as Opus 120, adding the following introductory note: "We present here to the world variations of no ordinary type, but a great and important masterpiece worthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the old classics . . . . All these variations, through the novelty of their ideas, care in working out, and beauty in the most artful of their transitions, will entitle the work to a place beside Johann Sebastian Bach's famous masterpiece in the same form." In the following year, 1824, it was republished as Volume 1 of a two-volume set entitled Vaterländische Künstlerverein (Patriotic/National/Native Artists' Association), the second volume comprising the fifty variations by fifty composers.^[9] Subsequent editions no longer mentioned "Vaterländische Künstlerverein." ^[10]

Title

The title Beethoven gave to the work has received some comment. His first reference was in his correspondence, where he called it Große Veränderungen über einen bekannten 'Deutschen ("Grand Variations on a well-known German dance"). Upon first publication, however, the title referred explicitly to a waltz by Diabelli: 33 Veränderungen über einen Walzer von Diabelli. A point worth noting is that rather than using the usual word Variationen, which has its origins in Italian, Beethoven chose Veränderungen. This was a period when he preferred using the German language, often in expression marks and titles, such as Hammerklavier. ^[11] But the word Veränderungen can also mean "transformations" rather than merely "variations," and some writers suggest Beethoven was indicating that his aim was to do something more profound in this work than had hitherto been done in the variation form.

Dedication

Although some commentators find significance in the fact that the work was dedicated to Mme. Antonia von Brentano, she was not Beethoven's first choice. His original plan was to have the work sent to England where his old friend, Ferdinand Ries, would find a publisher; Beethoven promised the dedication to Ries's wife ("You will also receive in a few weeks 33 variations on a theme dedicated to your wife." Letter, April 25, 1823). A delay in the shipment to England resulted in confusion. As Beethoven explained to Ries in a later letter, "The variations were not to appear here until after they had been published in London, but everything went askew. The dedication to Brentano was intended only for Germany, as I was under obligation to her and could publish nothing else at the time. Besides, only Diabelli, the publisher here, got them from me. Everything was done by Schindler, a bigger wretch I never knew on God's earth--an arch-scoundrel whom I have sent about his business--I can dedicate another work to your wife in place of it ..."^[12]

Diabelli's Theme

Whether Schindler's story is true or not that Beethoven at first contemptuously dismissed Diabelli's waltz as a Schusterfleck (rosalia / "cobbler's patch"), there is no doubt the definition fits the work perfectly - "musical sequences repeated one after another, each time modulated at like intervals" - as can be seen clearly in these three examples -

(1) (2) (3)

Considering the rosalias and the simple, unchanging chords repeated so many times in the treble, what can be said about the artistic worth of the waltz? How are we to view it, how can we balance its simplicity with the vast, complex musical structure Beethoven built upon it? From the earliest days this enigma has drawn comment, and the widest possible range of opinions of Diabelli's theme have been expressed. At one end of the spectrum is the admiration of Donald Francis Tovey ("rich in solid musical facts," cast in "reinforced concrete"^[13] ) and Maynard Solomon ("pellucid, brave, utterly lacking in sentimentality or affectation") and the kindly tolerance of Hans von Bülow ("quite a pretty and tasteful little piece, protected from the dangers of obsolescence by what one might call its melodic neutrality"). At the other end is William Kinderman's contempt ("banal," "trite", "a beer hall waltz").^[14] Much depends on how one views the overall purpose and structure of the work.

Commentaries

Since the work was first published, commentators have tried to find patterns, even an overall plan or structure for this huge, diverse work, but little consensus has been reached. Several early writers sought to discover clear parallels with the Goldberg Variations of Johann Sebastian Bach, without great success. Others claimed to have found symmetries, three groups of nine, for example, although the penultimate Fugue had to be counted as five.^[15] The work has been analyzed in terms of sonata form, complete with separate 'movements.' What is not disputed, however, is that the work begins with a simple, rather commonplace musical idea, transforms it in many radical ways, and ends with a sequence of variations that are sublime in the manner of other late Beethoven works.

Maynard Solomon in The Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination expresses this idea symbolically, as a journey from the everyday world ("Diabelli's theme conveys ideas, not only of the national, the commonplace, the humble, the rustic, the comic, but of the mother tongue, the earthly, the sensuous, and, ultimately, perhaps, of every waltzing couple under the sun"^[16] to a transcendent reality. For Solomon the structure, if there is any, consists merely of "clusters of variations representing forward and upward motion of every conceivable kind, character and speed." He sees demarcation points at Variations 8, 14 and 20, which he characterizes as three "strategically placed plateaus [which] provide spacious havens for spiritual and physical renewal in the wake of the exertions which have preceded them."^[17]). Thus, his analysis yields four sections, variations 1-7, 9-13, 15-19 and 21-33.

The most influential writing on the work today is William Kinderman's Beethoven's Diabelli Variations.^[18] which begins by carefully tracing the development of the work through various Beethoven sketchbooks. Of great significance, according to Kinderman, is the discovery that a few crucial variations were added in the final stage of composition, 1822-23 and inserted at important turning-points in the series. A careful study of these late additions reveals that they stand out from the others by having in common a return to, and special emphasis on, the melodic outline of Diabelli's waltz, in the mode of parody. For Kinderman, parody is the key to the work. He points out that most of the variations do not emphasize the simple features of Diabelli's waltz - "Most of Beethoven's other variations thoroughly transform the surface of Diabelli's theme, and though motivic materials from the waltz are exploited exhaustively, its affective model is left far behind."^[19] The purpose of the new variations is to recall Diabelli's waltz in order to keep the cycle from spiraling too far away from its original theme. Without such a device, considering the great variety and complexity of the set, Diabelli's waltz would become superfluous, "a mere prologue to the whole." Parody is used because of the banality of Diabelli's theme.

Kinderman distinguishes several forms of "parody," pointing out several examples which have no special structural significance and which were composed in the earlier period, such as the humorous parody of the aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni (Var. 22) and the parody of a Cramer finger exercise (Var. 23). He also mentions allusions to Bach (Vars. 24 and 32) and Mozart (Var. 33). But the added, structural variations recall Diabelli's waltz, not Bach or Mozart or Cramer, and clearly highlight its most unimaginative aspects, especially its repetition of the C major tonic chord with G emphasized as the high note and the static harmony thus created. The first of the three added variations is No. 1, a "mock-heroic" march which immediately follows Diabelli to open the set dramatically. Echoing in the right hand the tonic triad of the theme while the left hand simply walks down in octaves Diabelli's descending fourth. Afterwards Diabelli is barely recognizable until Variation 15, the second structural variation, a brief, lightweight piece conspicuously inserted between several of the most powerful variations (Nos. 14, 16 and 17). It recalls and caricatures the original waltz by means of its prosaic harmony. The third and final structural variation, in Kinderman's anlaysis, is No. 25, which shifts Diabelli's monotonous rhythm from the bass to the treble and fills the bass with a simple figure endlessly repeated in a "lumbering caricature." It opens the concluding section of the series which moves from the ridiculous to the sublime, from Diabelli's waltz to Beethoven's minuet, along the way incorporating the history of music from Bach, through Mozart, to the world of Beethoven's own last piano sonatas.

Kinderman summarizes, "Diabelli's waltz is treated first ironically as a march that is half-stilted, half-impressive, and then, at crucial points in the form, twice recapitulated in amusing caricature variations. At the conclusion of the work, in the Fugue and last variation, reference to the melodic head of Diabelli's theme once again becomes explicit - indeed, it is hammered into the ground. But any further sense of the original context of the waltz is lacking. By means of three parody variations, 1, 15, and 25, Beethoven established a series of periodic references to the waltz that draw it more closely into the inner workings of the set, and the last of these gives rise to a progression that transcends the theme once and for all. That is the central idea of the Diabelli Variations." ^[20]

Kinderman thus sees the work as falling into three sections, Variations 1-14, 15-24 and 25-33.

Beethoven and Bach

The reputation of the Diabelli Variations ranks alongside Bach's Goldberg Variations. However, while in the Goldberg Variations Bach deprived himself of the resources available from taking the melody of the theme as a guiding principle, thereby gaining an independence in melodic matters that enabled him to attain far more variety and expanse, Beethoven made no such sacrifice. He exploited the melody, in addition to the harmonic and rhythmic elements, and by doing so succeeded in fusing them all into a set of variations of incredible analytical profundity. In addition to the analytical aspects, Beethoven enlarged upon the dimensions of this musical material so that the Diabelli Variations are properly called 'amplifying variations'.

Numbers 24 and 32 are more or less textbook fugues that show Beethoven's debt to Bach, a debt further highlighted in variation 31, the last of the slow minor variations, with its direct reference to the Goldberg Variations.

The Variations

• Tema: Vivace: The theme - Diabelli's waltz

• Variation 1: Alla marcia maestoso - After Diabelli's theme, the work begins with a strong, heavily accented march. Kinderman characterizes it as "pompous" and "mock-heroic." ^[21]

• Variation 2: Poco allegro - Added to the set late in the composing process. Alternating hands and patterns of dissonances create wonderful effects. From Variation 2 to 5 the drama increases.

• Variation 3: L’istesso tempo - This was the first variation in Beethoven's original plan. ^[22] It is paired with Variations 4, united by their use of counterpoint and by the smooth transition between them. From the earliest sketchbooks, Beethoven kept these two together.

• Variation 4: Un poco più vivace - This exciting variation with its driving rhythm employs a phrasing that emphasizes the third beat of the bar (although it is not clear in the short excerpt below). Each half closes in a loud climax.

• Variation 5: Allegro vivace - An exciting number with breathtaking rhythmic climaxes.

• Variation 6: Allegro ma non troppo e serioso. This and the following variation are brilliant, exciting, virtuoso pieces.

• Variation 7: Un poco più allegro. Brilliant and dramatic but with a sound that Kinderman describes as "harsh."^[23]

• Variation 8: Poco vivace - A sharp contrast with the preceding pieces, marked "sweetly and tenderly."

• Variation 9: Allegro pesante e risoluto - A powerful variation focusing on Diabelli's opening grace-note and turn. This and the following variation return to great drama.

• Variation 10: Presto - Traditionally viewed as the close of a main division of the work. The most brilliant of all the variations (Kinderman, p. 91).

• Variation 11: Allegretto - Quiet and graceful. Kinderman points out how closely related Variations 11 and 12 are in structure.^[24]

• Variation 12: Un poco più moto - Ceaseless motion. Kinderman sees this variation as foreshadowing Number 20 because of the simple the way it exposes the harmonic structure.

• Variation 13: Vivace - Powerful, rhythmic chords followed by silence, then soft replies. Characterized by von Lenz as "eloquent pauses."

• Variation 14: Grave e maestoso - The first slow variation. Von Bülow comments, "To imbue this wonderful number with what I should like to call the 'high priestly solemnity' in which it was conceived, let the performer's fantasy summon up before his eyes the sublime arches of a Gothic cathedral." Kinderman writes of its "breadth and measured dignity," adding "its spacious noblity brings the work to a point of exposure which arouses our expectations for some new and dramatic gesture."

• Variation 15: Presto scherzando - A short, light number before two loud virtuoso displays. Kinderman seems puzzled by its lightness and describes it as "a kind of comic parenthesis between the Maestoso and the great march." ^[25]

One of the last variations composed.

• Variation 16: Allegro - A virtuoso variation.

• Variation 17: Allegro. The second march.

• Variation 18: Poco moderato. Another variation using the opening turn in Diabelli's waltz.

• Variation 19: Presto - Fast and busy, in sharp contrast to the variation which follows. Von Bülow points out "the canonic dialogue between the two parts."

• Variation 20: Andante - An extraordinarily slow-moving variation consisting almost entirely of dotted whole notes, as if the accompaniment was isolated, greatly contrasting with the variations coming before and after. Suggesting the title "Oracle," von Bülow recommends "an effect suggestive of the veiled organ-registers." Kinderman writes, "In this great enigmatic slow variation, No. 20, we have reached the still centre of the work ... the citadel of 'inner peace'." ^[26]

• Variation 21: Allegro con brio – Meno allegro – Tempo primo. An extreme contrast to the preceding Andante. The beginning, in Kinderman's analysis, of variations achieving "transcendence," evoking "the entire musical universe as Beethoven knew it."^[27]

• Variation 22: Allegro molto, alla ‘Notte e giorno faticar’ di Mozart - A reference to Leporello's aria in the beginning of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The music is rather crudely humorous in style. Because Leporello is complaining that he has to "Work day and night," it is sometimes said that here Beethoven is grumbling about the labour he poured into these variations. It may, too, suggest that Diabelli stole his theme from Mozart.

• Variation 23: Allegro assai - For von Bülow, another virtuoso variation to close what he views as the second main division of the work. For Kinderman, a parody of finger exercises published by J.B. Cramer (whom Beethoven did admire as a pianist).

• Variation 24: Fughetta (Andante) - Lyrical and beautiful, greatly contrasting with the preceding variation. Kinderman compares it with the concluding fugue in the last movement of the Sonata in A flat, Op. 110 and to the mood of "certain quiet devotional passages in the Missa Solemnis," both of which were composed in this same period.^[28] Certainly an allusion to Bach.

• Variation 25: Allegro - Simple chords in the right hand over a ceaseless, busy pattern in the left hand.

• Variation 26: (Piacevole)

• Variation 27: Vivace

• Variation 28: Allegro - Von Bülow sees this as the close of the third main division of the work. "This Variation ... must be hammered out with wellnigh raging impetuosity ... More delicate shading would not be in place - at least in the First Part (von Bülow).

• Variation 29: Adagio ma non troppo - The first of three slow variations, this appears to be the beginning of the end: "The composer transports us into a new, more earnest, even melancholy realm of feeling. It might be regarded as beginning the Adagio of this Variation-sonata; from this Adagio we are carried back, by the grand double fugue, Var. XXXII, into the original bright sphere of the tone-poem, the general character of which receives its seal in the graceful Minuetto-Finale." (von Bülow)

• Variation 30: Andante, sempre cantabile - "A kind of Baroque lament" (Kinderman). Slow and expressive, like the variation which follows. Its final bars clearly lead to Variation 31.

• Variation 31: Largo, molto espressivo - Deeply felt, filled with ornaments and trills, there are many similarities with the Arietta of Piano Sonata, Op. 111. Von Bülow comments, "We should like to style this number, thoughtful and tender alike, a renascence of the Bach Adagio, as the succeeding double fugue is one of the Handel Allegro. Conjoining to these the final Variations, which might be considered as a new birth, so to speak, of the Haydn-Mozart Minuet, we possess, in these three Variations, a compendium of the whole history of music." The ending, an unresolved dominant seventh, leads naturally to the following fugue.

• Variation 32: Fuga: Allegro - "A rare example of Beethoven's works of triple fugue," says Kinderman. Rather than ending with the fugue, as was traditional, Beethoven follows it with a wonderful minuet. Solomon comments, "The thirty-third variation is introduced by a Poco adagio that breaks the fugue's agitated momentum and finally takes us to the brink of utter motionlessness, providing a curtain to separate the fugue from the minuet."^[29] The transition is, as Kinderman says, "one of the most magical moments in the work ... Beethoven emphasizes the diminished-seventh chord by a kind of arpeggiated cadenza spanning four and then five octaves. When the music comes to rest on this dissonant sonority, it is clear that we have reached the turning point, and are poised at a moment of great musical import. What accounts for the power of the following transition, which has so impressed musicians and critics? (Tovey called it 'one of the most appallingly impressive passages ever written.') One reason is surely the sheer temporal weight of the thirty-two variations that precede it, lasting three-quarters of an hour in performance. At this moment there is finally a halt to the seemingly endless continuity of variations in an unprecedented gesture. But this still fails to explain the uncanny force of the chord progression modulating from E flat major to the tonic C major of the Finale ..."

• Variation 33: Tempo di Menuetto moderato - An ethereal close to a musical masterpiece, transcendent in the manner of so many of the late works of Beethoven. Technically von Bülow admires in the closing four bars, "the principle of modulation chiefly developed in the master's last creative period ... the successive step-wise progession of the several parts while employing enharmonic modulation as a bridge to connect even the remotest tonalities." Solomon describes the conclusion as "the final image - of a tender, songful, profound nostalgia, a vantage point from which we can review the purposes of the entire journey."^[30] Ineffable.

Works inspired

• 33 Variations, a 2007 play by Moisés Kaufman, explores the story of the variations' composition.

References

1. ^ Cooper, Martin, "Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817-1827," Oxford University Press, 1985.
2. ^ Thayer's Life of Beethoven, revised and edited by Elliott Forbes, Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 617.
3. ^ Ibid., p. 853.
4. ^ A melody or musical sequence repeated one step, or some fixed interval, higher. Also known as a rosalia, named after an Italian song Rosalia, mia cara. Beethoven seemed to have taken pains to avoid rosalias. While it can be a simple, unimaginative device, Grove's Dictionary of Music, points out that the rosalia has been used effectively by great composers, as in Handel's Hallelujah chorus in the Messiah ("King of Kings"), the first movement of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony and the finale of Mozart's String Quartet K.575.
5. ^ Solomon, Maynard: "The Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination," University of California Press, 2004, pp. 11-12.
6. ^ Czerny, Carl, "On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven's Works for the Piano: Edited and with a Commentary by Paul Badura-Skoda," Universal Editions, 1970, p. 74
7. ^ Czerny, op. cit., p.74.
8. ^ Thayer's Life of Beethoven, op., cit., pp. 853-854.
9. ^ Grove's Dictionary describes the work by other composers as follows: "Many of the variations are similar in method, since the composers were working in ignorance of one another and since piano virtuosity and variation techniques were widely taught according to familiar principles. Many composers contented themselves with a running figure decorating the theme ... A number fastened on an idea developed with great power by Beethoven, such as Beethoven's pupil, the Archduke Rudolph, in an excellent piece. Some produced contrapuntal treatment...; others applied chromatic harmony to the diatonic theme....The variations by the famous piano virtuosos, especially Kalkbrenner, Czerny, Pixis, Moscheles, Gelinek and Stadler, are on the whole brilliant but shallow; for Liszt, then only 11, it was his first publication, and his piece is vigorous but hardly characteristic. Schubert's circle contributed some of the better pieces, including those by Assmayer and Hütterbrenner, though Schubert's own C minor variation is greatly superior. The variations by Drechsler, Freystädler, Gänsbacher and Schenk are also striking. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1980, Vol. 5, p. 414.
10. ^ Solomon, op. cit., pp. 18-19.
11. ^ Ibid., pp. 19-20.
12. ^ Thayer's Life of Beethoven, op., cit., pp. 855-856.
13. ^ Tovey, Donald Francis, Essays in Musical Analysis: Chamber Music, Oxford University Press, 1944, pp. 126-127.
14. ^ Kinderman, William, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987, p. 13.
15. ^ Kinderman, op. cit., p. 109.
16. ^ Solomon, op. cit., p. 20)
17. ^ Solomon, op. cit., p. 192.
18. ^ Kinderman, William, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.
19. ^ Ibid., p. 71.
20. ^ Ibid., pp. 84-85.
21. ^ Ibid., p. 73
22. ^ Ibid., p. 72
23. ^ Ibid., p. 88.
24. ^ Ibid., p. 96.
25. ^ Ibid., p. 99.
26. ^ Ibid., p. 102-103.
27. ^ Ibid., p. 104.
28. ^ Ibid., p. 106.
29. ^ Solomon, of. cit., p. 26.
30. ^ Solomon, of. cit., p. 26.

External links

Sheet music

• Diabelli Variations: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.
• Public Domain sheet music of Franz Schubert's Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli at IMSLP
• Public Domain sheet music of Franz Liszt's Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli at IMSLP
• Score of Mozart's aria "Notte e giorno faticar" from Don Giovanni. Compare with Variation 22 above.

Recordings

• Performances of Mozart's aria "Notte e giorno faticar" from Don Giovanni (videos on YouTube.com). Compare with Variation 22 above.

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