Diabelli Variations - The Variations

The Variations

The performer of the audio files in this section is Neal O'Doan.

Tema: Vivace

Diabelli's theme, a waltz with off-beat accents and sharp changes in dynamics, was never intended for dancing. By this time, the waltz was no longer merely a dance but had become a form of art music. Alfred Brendel's suggested title for Diabelli's theme, in his essay "Must Classical Music be Entirely Serious?", making the case for viewing the Diabelli Variations as a humorous work, is Alleged Waltz. Commentators do not agree on the intrinsic musical value of Diabelli's theme.

Diabelli's theme

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Variation 1: Alla Marcia maestoso

While Beethoven's first variation stays close to the melody of Diabelli's theme, there is nothing waltz-like about it. It is a strong, heavily accented march in 4/4 time, greatly differing from the character and 3/4 time of the theme. This sharp break from Diabelli announces that the series will not consist of mere decorative variations on a theme. The first variation, according to Tovey, gives "emphatic proof that this is to be a very grand and serious work", describing it as "entirely solemn and grand in style".

Kinderman, on the other hand, whose researches among the Beethoven sketchbooks discovered that Variation 1 was inserted late into the work, deems it a "structural variation", echoing Diabelli more clearly than the non-structural variations and, in this case, parodying the weaknesses of the theme. Its character is, for Kinderman, "pompous" and "mock-heroic". Alfred Brendel takes a view similar to Kinderman's, characterizing this variation as "serious but slightly lacking in brains". The title he offers is March: gladiator, flexing his muscles. Wilhelm von Lenz called it The Mastodon and the Theme —a fable.

Variation 2: Poco Allegro

This variation was not part of Beethoven's first series but was added somewhat later. While it returns to 3/4 time after the preceding march, it echoes little of Diabelli's theme. It is delicate, with a hushed, tense atmosphere. The only markings are p and leggiermente. It moves in eighth notes, allegro, the treble and bass rapidly alternating throughout the entire piece. Near the end, the tension is increased by syncopations. Brendel suggests the delicacy of this variation by entitling it Snowflakes. Beethoven diverges from Diabelli's structure of two equal parts, each one repeated, by omitting a repeat for the first part. Artur Schnabel, in his famous recording, repeated the first part anyway.

Variations 1 and 2

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Variation 3: L’istesso tempo

Marked dol (dolce), this variation has a strong melodic line, although the original theme is not obvious. Mid-way through each section echoes the rising sequence which occurred at a similar point in Diabelli's theme. In the second half, there is a remarkable pianissimo passage where the treble holds a chord for four full bars while the bass repeats a little three-note figure over and over, eight times, after which the melody proceeds as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

This was the first variation in Beethoven's original plan. From the earliest sketchbooks, Beethoven kept it together with the following Variation 4. Both use counterpoint, and the transition between them is seamless. Brendel's title for this variation is Confidence and nagging doubt.

Variation 4: Un poco più vivace

The steady rise in drama since Variation 2 reaches a high point in this variation. Here the excitement is brought front and centre, both halves of the piece racing in crescendos toward a pair of chords marked forte. The driving rhythm emphasizes the third beat of the bar. Brendel's title for this variation is Learned ländler.

Variations 3 and 4

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Variation 5: Allegro vivace

This fifth variation is an exciting number with breathtaking rhythmic climaxes. For the first time in the series, there are elements of virtuosity, which will become more pronounced in the variations which immediately follow. Brendel's title for this variation is Tamed goblin.

Variation 6: Allegro ma non troppo e serioso

Both this and the following variations are brilliant, exciting, virtuoso pieces. This sixth variation features a trill in nearly every bar set off against arpeggios and hurried figures in the opposite hand. Brendel's title for this variation is Trill rhetorics (Demonsthenes braving the surf). Wilhelm von Lenz called it "In the Tyrol".

Variation 7: Un poco più allegro

Sforzando octaves in the bass hand against triplets in the treble make for a brilliant, dramatic effect. Kinderman goes so far as to describe it as "harsh". Brendel's title for this variation is Sniveling and stamping.

Variations 5–7

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Variation 8: Poco vivace

After the three loud, dramatic variations which precede it, this eighth variation offers relief and contrast in the form of a soft, strongly melodic piece, the melody moving at a stately pace in half- and dotted half-notes, with the bass providing a quiet accompaniment in the form of rising figures. The marking is dolce e tenerament ("sweetly and tenderly"). Brendel's title for this variation is Intermezzo (to Brahms).

Variation 9: Allegro pesante e risoluto

Simple but powerful, Variation 9 is constructed out of the slimmest of materials, consisting of little more than Diabelli's opening grace-note and turn repeated in various registers. The direction is always ascending, building toward a climax. Brendel's title for this variation is Industrious nutcracker. Like Variation No. 1, he characterizes it as "deeply serious but slightly lacking in brains".

Variation 10: Presto

Traditionally viewed as the close of a main division of the work, Variation 10 is the most brilliant of all the variations, a break-neck presto with trills, tremolos and staccato octave scales. Tovey comments, "The tenth, a most exciting whirlwind of sound, reproduces all the sequences and rhythms of the theme so clearly that it seems much more like a melodic variation than it really is". Brendel's title for this variation is Giggling and neighing.

Variations 8–10

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Variation 11: Allegretto

Another variation built out of Diabelli's opening three notes, this one quiet and graceful. Kinderman points out how closely related Variations 11 and 12 are in structure. The opening of this variation appears in the movie Copying Beethoven as the theme of the sonata written by the copyist that Beethoven first ridicules then later, to redeem himself, begins to work on more seriously. Brendel's title for this variation is Innocente' (to Bülow).

Variation 12: Un poco più moto

Ceaseless motion with lots of running fourths. Kinderman sees this variation as foreshadowing Number 20 because of the simple way it exposes the harmonic structure. Tovey points out that it is a development of No. 11. Brendel's title for this variation is Wave Pattern. Variation 12 is another divergence from Diabelli's two-part structure. Rather than repeating the first part, Beethoven writes it out in full, making significant changes, while omitting a repeat or any substitution for a repeat for the second part.

Variation 13: Vivace

Powerful, rhythmic chords, forte, each time followed by nearly two bars of silence, then a soft reply. "Eloquent pauses", in von Lenz's words. "Absurd silences", for Gerald Abraham. Barry Cooper sees it as a humorous piece, in which Beethoven "seems almost to poke fun at Diabelli's theme". Diabelli's mild opening turn is turned into the powerful chords, and his repeated chords become a long silence. The sequence is ended with two soft, anti-climactic notes. Brendel's title for this variation is Aphorism (biting).

Variations 11–13

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Variation 14: Grave e maestoso

The first slow variation, grave e maestoso. 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 nobility brings the work to a point of exposure which arouses our expectations for some new and dramatic gesture." The three variations which follow certainly fulfill those expectations. Brendel's title for this variation is Here He Cometh, the Chosen.

Variation 14

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Variation 15: Presto Scherzando

One of the last variations composed, Variation 15 is short and light, setting the stage for the following two loud virtuoso displays. For Barry Cooper, this is another humorous variation poking fun at Diabelli's theme. Tovey comments, "The fifteenth variation gives the whole melodic outline so closely that its extraordinary freedom of harmony (the first half actually closes in the tonic) produces no effect of remoteness." Brendel's title for this variation is Cheerful Spook.

Tovey gives a similar analysis of the variations:

The same applies to the large block of two variations, sixteen and seventeen, of which the sixteenth has the melody in the right hand and semiquavers in the left, while the seventeenth has the melody in the bass and the semiquavers above. These variations are so close to the surface of the theme that the amazingly distant keys touched on by their harmonies add only a sense of majesty and depth to the effect without producing complexity.

Variation 16: Allegro

A virtuoso variation, forte, with trills and ascending and descending broken octaves. Brendel's title for this variation and the following one is Triumph.

Variation 17: Allegro

This is the second march after the opening variation, most of it forte, with accented octaves in the bass and ceaseless, hurried figures in the treble. For Tovey, "This brings the first half of the work to a brilliant climax". Brendel's title for this variation and the preceding one is Triumph.

Variations 15–17

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Variation 18: Poco moderato

Another variation using the opening turn in Diabelli's waltz, this time with a quiet (dolce), almost meditative character. Brendel's title for this variation is Precious memory, slightly faded.

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". Brendel's title for this variation is Helter-skelter.

Variations 18 and 19

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Variation 20: Andante

An extraordinarily slow-moving variation consisting almost entirely of dotted whole notes in low registers – a striking contrast with the variations immediately before and after. Diabelli's melody is easily identified, but the harmonic progressions (see bars 9–12) are unusual and the overall tonality is ambiguous. 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'". Tovey calls it "one of the most awe-inspiring passages in music". Brendel describes this Variation 20 as "hypnotic introspection" and offers as a title Inner sanctum. Liszt called it Sphinx. Diabelli's two-part structure is maintained, but without repeats.

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". The accompanying chords repeated so many times at the start of each section and the repeated trills repeated from the highest to the lowest registers ruthlessly exaggerate features of Diabelli's theme. Tovey describes this variation as "startling", but points out that it follows Diabelli's melody clearly and "changes from quick common to slower triple time whenever it reproduces the sequential passages ... in the theme". Brendel's title for this variation is Maniac and moaner. Uhde groups Nos. 21–28 as the "scherzo group", with the tender Fughetta (No. 24) standing in as a "trio".

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 has been suggested, too, that Beethoven is trying to tell us that Diabelli's theme was stolen from Mozart. Brendel's title for this variation is ‘Notte e giorno faticar’ (to Diabelli).

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 Johann Baptist Cramer (whom Beethoven did admire as a pianist, if not as a composer). Tovey refers to its "orchestral brilliance and capricious rhythm". Brendel's title for this variation is The virtuoso at boiling-point (to Cramer). He characterizes Nos. 23, 27 and 28 as "one-track minds in an excited state", suggesting an ironic approach.

Variations 20–23

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Variation 24: Fughetta (Andante)

Lyrical and beautiful, greatly contrasting with the preceding variation, an allusion to Bach. Tovey describes this variation as "a wonderfully delicate and mysterious web of sounds on a figure suggested partly by the treble and partly by the bass of the first four bars of the theme. Acting on a hint given him by the second half of Diabelli's theme, Beethoven inverts this in the second half of the fughetta." 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. Brendel's title for this variation is Pure Spirit.

Variation 24

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Variation 25: Allegro

Simple chords in the right hand over a ceaseless, busy pattern in the left hand. Tovey notes that it reproduces the opening of each half of Diabelli's theme quite simply, although the rest is very free, adding that "as a reaction from the impressively thoughtful and calm fughetta it has an intensely humorous effect". Brendel's title for this variation is Teutscher (German dance).

Variation 26: (Piacevole)

Brendel's title for this variation is Circles on the Water.

Variation 27: Vivace

Brendel's title for this variation is Juggler. He suggests an ironic approach, characterizing Nos. 23, 27 and 28 as "one-track minds in an excited state".

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)

Tovey writes:

After the twenty-eighth variation has brought this stage of the work to an exhilarating close, Beethoven follows Bach's example .... at precisely the same stage (Variation 25) in the Goldberg Variations, and boldly chooses the point at which he shall enlarge our expectations of further developments more surprisingly than ever before. He gives no less than three slow variations in the minor mode, producing an effect as weighty (even in proportion to the gigantic dimensions of the work) as that of a large slow movement in a sonata.

Brendel points out that as of 1819 there was a single C minor variation (No. 30) and that the late additions of Nos. 29 and 31 expanded the use of the key into "a larger C minor area". Brendel's title for this variation is The rage of the jumping-jack.

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) Brendel's title for this variation is Stifled sighs (Konrad Wolff).

Variations 25–29

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Variation 30: Andante, sempre cantabile

"A kind of Baroque lament" (Kinderman). Slow and expressive, like the variation which follows. Its final bars lead smoothly to Variation 31. Commentators have used strong language for the concluding section. Tovey describes it as "a phrase so haunting that though Beethoven does not repeat the entire sections of this variation he marks the last four bars to be repeated". Von Bulow says, "We can recognize in these four measures the original germ of the entire romanticism of Schumann". Brendel's title for this variation is Gentle grief. There are only hints of Diabelli's two-part structure.

Variation 30

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Variation 31: Largo, molto espressivo

Deeply felt, filled with ornaments and trills, there are many similarities with the arietta of Piano Sonata, Op. 111. Tovey again uses superlatives: "The thirty-first variation is an extremely rich outpouring of highly ornamented melody, which to Beethoven's contemporaries must have been hardly intelligible, but which we, who have learnt from Bach that a great artist's feeling is often more profound where his expression is most ornate, can recognize for one of the most impassioned utterances in all music."

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 Allegros. 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 of this variation, an unresolved dominant seventh, leads naturally to the following fugue. Brendel's title for this variation is To Bach (to Chopin). The structure is a foreshortening of Diabelli's theme.

Variation 31

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Variation 32: Fuga: Allegro

While in traditional variation sets a fugue was often used to conclude the work, Beethoven uses his fugue to reach a grand climax, then follows it with a final, quiet minuet. The fugue of Variation 32 is set apart by its foreign key, E-flat major. Structurally, the piece abandons Diabelli's two-part original. Melodically, it is based on Diabelli's falling fourth, used in many of the preceding variations, as well as, most strikingly, on the least inspired, least promising part of Diabelli's theme, the note repeated ten times. The bass in the opening bars takes Diabelli's rising figure and presents it in descending sequence. Out of these flimsy materials, Beethoven builds his powerful triple fugue.

The themes are presented in a variety of harmonies, contexts, lights and shades, and by using the traditional fugal techniques of inversion and stretto. About two thirds through, a fortissimo climax is reached and, following a pause, there begins a contrasting pianissimo section with a constantly hurrying figure serving as the third fugal subject. Eventually, the original two themes of the fugue burst out loudly again and the work races impetuously toward its final climax, a crashing chord and a grand sweep of arpeggios twice down and up the entire keyboard.

The transition to the sublime minuet that forms the final variation is a series of quiet, greatly prolonged chords that achieve an extraordinary effect. In Solomon's words, "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." The ending is so impressive that commentators are often driven to superlatives. Gerald Abraham calls it "one of the strangest passages Beethoven ever wrote". Kinderman describes the transition as "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 ..."

Tovey's description of this dramatic moment is:

The storm of sound melts away, and, through one of the most ethereal and—I am amply justified in saying—appallingly impressive passages ever written, we pass quietly to the last variation

Brendel's title for this variation is To Handel.

Variation 32

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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. Tovey comments:

It is profoundly characteristic of the way in which (as Diabelli himself seems partly to have grasped) this work develops and enlarges the great aesthetic principles of balance and climax embodied in the 'Goldberg' Variations, that it ends quietly. The freedom necessary for an ordinary climax on modern lines was secured already in the great fugue, placed, as it was, in a foreign key; and now Beethoven, like Bach, rounds off his work by a peaceful return home—a home that seems far removed from these stormy experiences through which alone such ethereal calm can be attained.

Brendel's title for this variation is To Mozart; to Beethoven explaining:

In the coda of the concluding variation, Beethoven speaks on his own behalf. He alludes to another supreme set of variations, that from his own last Sonata, Op. 111, which had been composed before the Diabelli Variations were finished. Beethoven's Arietta from Op. 111 is not only in the same key as Diabelli's 'waltz', but also shares certain motivic and structural features, while the characters of the two themes could not be more disparate. One can hear the Arietta as yet another, more distant, offspring of the 'waltz', and marvel at the inspirational effect of the 'cobbler's patch'.

Solomon describes the closing bars as "the final image – of a tender, songful, profound nostalgia, a vantage point from which we can review the purposes of the entire journey." 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 progression of the several parts while employing enharmonic modulation as a bridge to connect even the remotest tonalities." After a final ascent that seems directed toward some otherworldly realm, Beethoven adds a single forte chord.

Variation 33

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