Diabelli Variations

"Variations on a waltz for solo piano (there are many)". Beethoven underestimated his masterpiece when he introduced it with these words in a letter of June 5, 1822 to the Peters publishing house. The idea for this truly monumental composition came to him as early as 1819, when Viennese music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) asked several composers and pianists working in Austria to each send a variation on a waltz he had created for the purpose. Beethoven must also have received this invitation. However, his creative imagination - and probably his ambition too - was so stimulated by the theme that within a few months he had sketched out a large number of variations. Beethoven then set them aside for almost four years, busy with the completion of other works; it wasn't until April 1823 that he finally finished the autograph. Nevertheless, he kept pace with Diabelli's project: the 33 variations op. 120 appeared in printed form in June 1823; the joint work, finally consisting of 50 variations, was published a year later under the title Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Veränderungen für das Pianoforte über ein vorgelegtes Thema (Patriotic artists' association. Variations for pianoforte on a given theme).

In contrast to this singular collective publication, in which the individual contributions are arranged alphabetically by composer's name, Beethoven had a well-calculated overview of his score, and created a complete cycle far more than a simple series of variations. The complexity of its structure is illustrated by the variety of possible links. Seen from the outside, the cycle appears as an almost symmetrically ordered sequence of groups of four variations each (apart from the last, no. 33). However, other classifications are possible according to other parameters or aspects, far beyond the standard models of the time. From the very first variation, entitled alla Marcia maestosoBeethoven breaks with the theme and distances himself decisively from it. Thereafter, it is often only individual motifs, harmonic progressions or rhythmic and melodic elements that recall the reference theme. The pent-up energy finally spills over into a masterly double fugue, with which Beethoven leaves the tonal framework of C major (and the C minor variant) for the first time. Finally, Variation 33 is more than just an epilogue, with its particularly serene, almost transcendent gaiety.

Even Hans von Bülow (1830-1894), interpreter of the Diabelli Variations considered "unplayable" for decades, could hardly find words to describe this pinnacle of the art of variation: for him, it was "the absolute microcosm of Beethoven's genius, indeed a representation of the entire musical world in a single excerpt".

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