The variations form is actually quite simple: a well-known tune or an original theme is played and then repeated in different versions. Some variations closely follow the original theme while others are extremely complex and refer to only a hint of the original theme. Composers from the Renaissance to the present day have taken both approaches when writing keyboard variations.
The form has been popular since the 16th century when the Spanish virtuoso Antonio de Cabezón wrote organ variations on popular Gregorian chant themes. Variations were also in vogue in England where composers such as John Bull, Peter Philips and William Byrd wrote ornate variations on popular tunes for harpsichord or virginals (a smaller, rectangular version of the harpsichord).
During the 17th century the great Dutch organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck wove intricate variations around Lutheran chorale tunes and popular songs. Later in the century Dietrich Buxtehude, a Denmark-born organ virtuoso, wrote some of the most elaborate variations of the time for organ and harpsichord. Buxtehude’s “32 variations on La Capricciosa,” a popular tune of the day, is a spectacularly inventive showpiece and one of the glories of early keyboard music. One of Buxtehude’s greatest acolytes was a young organist named Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach once walked over 250 miles to hear Buxtehude play the organ so it’s fitting that Bach wrote was is arguably one of the most famous set of variations ever, the “Goldberg Variations.”
Composers continued to write keyboard variations through the Classical and Romantic eras, and the form is still popular to this day. But our focus is on a set of variations by that pugnacious genius from Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven.
In 1819 the composer and publisher Anton Diabelli invited some of the great Austrian composers of his day to write variations on one of his waltzes. Beethoven was not in love with the tune, calling it a “cobbler’s patching,” but eventually settled down to work and wrote 33 variations. Beethoven’s epic Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, op. 120 may not quite rival the “Goldbergs” in popularity, but it’s one of the composer’s great works, a series of brilliant miniatures in a wide range of moods and styles. Award-winning pianist Paul Lewis, one of the great Beethoven performers of our day, tackles this marvelous cycle in our featured recording.
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by Craig Zeichner
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