Beethoven - Variations for Pianoforte
Played by V. Hely-Hutchinson

Variations as a form are somehow not popular with the ordinary listener; it may be that the young aspirant for mastery over a musical instrument, especially the pianoforte, is given an overdose of variations in his apprenticeship. They ought to be popular; there is a special interest in following the transformations of a tune through the various moods with which a composer can invest it, and composers have always been attracted by the form. Beethoven, especially, made great use of variations, and found them flow so happily from his thought that it was evidently difficult for him to stop. When he was asked, for instance, to compose one of a set of variations which was being made on a waltz by Diabelli, he composed no fewer than thirty-three. For the pianoforte, by itself, and along with other instruments, he gave us as many as twenty-nine sots of variations, some on themes of his own, some on other people's tunes. And besides these, many of the movements in his symphonies and chamber music pieces are variations, either so called or series of free variants on the theme with which he sets out.

There are various ways in which a set of variations can be built up. The simplest and most obvious is to keep the tune in its original shape and to embroider it with different kinds of accompaniment, usually growing more and more elaborate as the piece proceeds. Most listeners must have heard such variations on 'Annie Laurie' and other favourite airs. Another plan is to keep the harmonic base of the tune, and embellish the melody itself. Beethoven does this in many of his variations with an ease and fertility of invention which were apparently inexhaustible. In almost all of his works, except some of the earliest, there are examples of variations of this kind. It was not actually Beethoven's invention, Haydn and Mozart before him having done something very much the same. But no one, except possibly Schubert, made use of it in so effective and interesting a way.

The third method, and this one Beethoven really did originate, is to make changes in the melody and its rhythm and its harmony all at once, while yet preserving the character of the original tune. In these, it is as though Beethoven evolved, time after time, a new creation out of the mere germ of the original air.