Variations on a Lifelong Theme

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven’s life as a set of themes and variations, beginning with his very first musical excursions in the form in the early 1790s.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed piano music in the form of themes and variations across his entire career - from his earliest published work to his late, titanic “Diabelli Variations”, lasting nearly an hour. And Beethoven’s life can itself be seen as a set of variations on a theme: recurring episodes of unrequited love, artistic anguish, angry fallings-out and constant striving for the highest pinnacle of musical achievement. Yet Beethoven’s piano variations often lie in the shadow of his 32 great sonatas for the instrument. This week, Donald Macleod puts that right - shining a light on this remarkable corpus of work, as well another often-overlooked genre: his piano bagatelles.

He begins with Beethoven’s very first published work - a boyhood set of variations for piano on a theme by one Ernst Christoph Dressler - before taking us on a journey through mid-1790s Vienna, as an impatient and ambitious young Beethoven meets a man who would become one of the most important patrons of his life: Prince Karl Lichnowsky. Music includes Beethoven’s earliest-composed piano concerto - confusingly numbered his second - as well as an exploration of one of his last utterances for piano: his Six Bagatelles, Op 126.

Diabelli Variations (Theme and 1st variation)
Mitsuko Uchida, piano

Variations in C Minor on a theme of Ernst Christoph Dressler, WoO 63
See Siang Wong, piano

Variations in G on “Quant’e piu bello”, WoO 69
Ronald Brautigam, piano

Piano Trio no 2 in G, Opus 1 No 2 (2nd mvt)
Trio Sora

Piano Concerto no 2 in B Flat, Op 19 (3rd mvt)
Kristian Bezuidenhout, piano
Freiburger Barockorchester
Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor

Six Bagatelles, Op 126
Yevgeny Sudbin, piano

Producer: Steven Rajam