Talk:Diabelli Variations

Znethru's notes from May 2006

I have written some further notes on this composition today in my blog at blog.co.uk - one fact for sure seems to be unclear, Liszt's age in 1819!

Who was Diabelli?

Diabelli was an utterly talentless composer of the early 19th Century whose father happened to be a music publisher. He wrote hundreds of trivial works (largely for solo Piano) which were all published and put into print but are universally ignored today. However (in an almost conceptual way) he had a gigantic brainwave in 1819.

He wrote a piece of his normal compositional standard (i.e. total garbage) - a Waltz in C major and sent it to all of the composers working in Vienna at that time (including Schubert and the 8 year-old Liszt), asking them to write a Variation on the work which he would publish in one large volume.

Diabelli variations

When this crapulous Waltz in C major landed on Beethoven's desk, he laughed his head off (and probably nearly ripped it up in disgust)... however, after more careful consideration, Beethoven had a brainwave somewhat greater than Diabelli's conceptual idea.

He got wind of the fact that Diabelli had sent this Waltz to 32 other composers... and had the idea to pretend that he wasn't going to submit a variation to Diabelli for publication at all... that the piece was far too trivial to merit having variations written in its honour.

However, secretly for four years (1819-1823), Beethoven worked away at producing one of the all time immortal works for Piano. He composed a set of 33 variations (lasting over an hour) on the Waltz with the primary subtext one better than all of the other 32 composers put together.

Beethoven - Diabelli variations

I have been listening to this work for several hours today in the Schnabel recording. Apparently the Polish Pianist Anderszewski is one of the leading current exponents of this masterwork. It is also interesting to note that Brendel rates it as the best work ever written for Piano.

• The 33 variations cover every Piano technique known at the time of its composition with a few of Beethoven's invention thrown in for good measure.
• Variation 22 is an Allegro molto, alla ‘Notte e giorno faticar’ di Mozart (quoting Mozart's Opera Don Giovanni - a neat trick!)
• Variation 32 is a Fugue - a difficult compositional device at which J.S.Bach excelled. Footnote - The Diabelli Variations are often seen as an answer to the Goldberg variations of J.S.B. (Goldberg was an even less gifted composer than Diabelli!)

Diabelli poem from NZ

• Poem title: Diabelli Variations
• Poet - James Norcliffe (I assume from NZ as this work is published at NZetc).

I love

this music

it laughs at

right-angles

it mocks

wallpaper

I play it

over

& over

& over

Diabelli subtexts

Beethoven took the worst, most stupid, irrelevant, trivial, badly composed, unmusical piece of tripe and turned it into the World's greatest keyboard masterpiece of all time (according to some authorities). A neat party trick that took him four years (on and off) to accomplish.

Subtext 2 - I can turn the worst into the best.

There is a lot of humour in the music. Both 'good humour' and actual amusing moments (I have already mentioned the Mozart quote).

As early as Variation 1 (a kind of manic triumphant march), Beethoven is saying (subtext 3) 'ignore the theme you've just had the misfortune to hear, you're about to listen to some echt Beethoven now.'

Some of the later variations (29, 30 and 31 in particular) are among the most sublime and contemplative inventions of Beethoven's canon. We move into the realms of Romanticism which some scholars claim Beethoven always avoided only ever taking Classicism to its most extreme parameters.

Author - Jonathan FeBland (text added by Special:Contributions/Znethru in May 2006)

replies

And from what little else I've heard by Diabelli so far, "utterly talentless" is true in comparison with Beethoven but then - Beethoven was first rank, it's just a lot unfair to compare anyone but the best of second rank composers and the other few first-rank ones with him... otherwise, no, it's not true. My POV, of course. However, what it was, was a publishing project, to bring various composers together- there have been quite a few others (Hexameron; the 20th century Waltz Project to which Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt I believe and other composers better and less-known (and of rather different styles than those two) contributed waltzes); etc.! Beethoven opted out and then had another idea, an astounding one (again, my POV- I do think the Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli is one of the greatest of piano works, and that this is because of Beethoven's music and not the waltz itself. Just watch who you call talentless ;) ) Schissel | Sound the Note! 16:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Schissel that all the name-calling for Diabelli and his waltz is not justified. Greater musicians and commentators than I (and probably than any of us) such as Tovey have found merit in it, so braying at it seems unwarranted. Deschreiber (talk) 14:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Liszt, who was born in 1811...

...would have been eight years old in 1819 when Diabelli sent out his theme, not eleven, as the article states. K. Lásztocska 02:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear exactly in what year Liszt received his invitation. There are indications that some invitations might have been sent out years after others. Deschreiber (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 12:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Liszt's age

I think most publications give Liszt's age as 11, appropriate for when he wrote his variation. Though Diabelli distributed his waltz in 1819 the collection wasn't published until 1823. Liszt would have been 11 in 1822.

Kinneymusic 01:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The main article at present reads "over 7", but the quotation from Grove has 11.

The booklet for the Ashkenazy Decca CD playing in this room at the moment has 11, in a text by a Michael Steinberg.

I think it should read 11, citing Grove.

Varlaam (talk) 19:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

By coincidence, both Ashkenazy's recording and Steinberg are named in the article, and they have 11.

Varlaam (talk) 20:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I've changed it to harmonise with the article about Liszt's variation. Graham87 03:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Variation 28 Extract

The extract shown for var 28 is actually var 33 - Deschreiber, you seem to be the source of the extracts: could you fix this? AndrewWTaylor 07:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

This is the first variation not in Diabelli's original key of C major?

Variation 32 states this, but the previous three variations all have three flats in the key signature. DavidRF 05:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Bendel?

"As Alfred Bendel cleverly puts it," - Do you mean Alfred Brendel? 85.56.207.191 (talk) 12:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Umm, yeah. Typo. Why not just correct it? (I'll do it now, if it's still there.)

Deschreiber (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC).

POV tag

Why is there a POV tag on this article? I don't see any explanation on this talk page. The tag was added with no edit summary (diff), by User:WesternActor. Pfly (talk) 03:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK most of the POV is in quotes, which is OK. It might be a good idea to wait a couple of days to see if we hear any other views. Graham87 06:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the editor that added the POV tag supposed to follow up on the talk page with specifics?DavidRF (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Definitely. Tags shouldn't be thrown around without explanations. Graham87 14:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the tag, since there have been no further comments in this section. Graham87 01:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)