The first thing I wanted to do, after a year of playing Beethoven piano sonatas, was read the “Diabelli variations.” I managed to read a good chunk of it while in Seattle over vacation, but will the coughing fits I was having, I put it aside for another day. Needless to say, I still had the itch to play more Beethoven, so I read through the first four sets in Volume 2 (Henle), WoO (without Opus) 76, 77, 78 and Op. 34. Beethoven wrote twenty sets of piano variations over his lifetime, a great majority of which were never published. Of the four published variations, Op. 34 is the first, and Op. 120, the aforementioned “Diabelli,” his very last piano work.
Seeing as how so many of these were never published, I began to ponder why, which led me to also wonder why sets of variations, as a whole, are not taught very often. For the latter, a set of variations is not a standard work that is competition worthy (not a sonata, concerto, or stand-alone piece such as a toccata, prelude and fugue, or mazurka). For Beethoven, it would seem that many of these sets of variations were a compositional exercise. It would seem, then, that we should teach these as often, for the same reason!
But, I digress. WoO. 77, the Six Leichte Variations in G Major, are certainly easy, and very much in the classical style. Nothing stood out as quintessentially Beethoven. The WoO 76 and 78, however, were more enjoyable, although fairly formulaic. The first is comprised of a very short theme NOT in binary form. Variation 8, somewhat fugal, and the two lines of Adagio coda, stood out among the rest. Could this coda be an experiment for the Op. 34, which possibly was written soon after? WoO 78 is based upon the theme “God Save the Queen” (a.k.a. “My Country ’tis of thee”), and again was a standard set of classical variations. Variation 4, and again the coda, stood out as more characteristically Beethoven–especially the coda, which had just enough crazy 4 against 6 sixteenth notes to whet the appetite for more.
It is clear to me why Beethoven chose Op. 34 as his first published set of variations. The 2/4 Adagio theme is original (Beethoven’s composition), and is quite beautiful. Variation 1 was a little hard on the eyes, being filled with 64th notes (but not as much so as the coda, with 132nd notes!) Variation 2 reminded me of Schumann, and Variation 5, a fast funeral march. The extensive coda had a rich, full sound, with arpeggiated sextuplets in the bass and even a short cadenza.
Claudio Arrau plays the coda here (this is a two part video, the coda begins at about 1:35 in the second part):
Piano Reading Project 