Description
Book SynopsisIn From Bach's Goldberg to Beethoven's Diabelli: Influence and Independence, music scholar and noted pianist Alfred Kanwischer takes readers on an extended exploration in which each of the thirty-three pieces making up Beethoven's Diabelli Variations (Op. 120) is caringly examined and assessed for its ingredients, actions, personality, and influence on the whole. Counterpoint abounds, not only in the fugal variations, which are closely parsed, but throughout the Diabelli, revealing the noticeably baroque character of the technical compositional devices Beethoven employs. Throughout his study, Kanwischer integrates comparisons with Bach's immortal Goldberg Variations. Both sets stand alone as among the greatest keyboard variations in the Western canon. During their creation, the composers were nearly the same age, at the zenith of their art, and in similarly felicitous frames of mind. Kanwischer underscores twenty essential similarities, from the use of melody and melodic outline and
Trade ReviewAlfred Kanwischer’s monumental study of these two great variation sets is especially valuable because it comes from a gifted performer and wide-ranging historian who has devoted decades to the intricate details of their construction and meaning. Musicologists often lament the fact that the great performers hesitate to record in words what they have learned from their intense study of works for public performance. Here is a study that documents exactly the kind of in-depth analysis we seek, and one richly interspersed with aphoristic quotes, references to useful secondary literature, and the author’s own keen insights. There is nothing quite like this study. -- William Meredith, Director, The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Sources Chapter 1: Comparison: Similarities Chapter 2: Comparison: Dissimilarities Chapter 3: Analysis: Diabelli Waltz, Variations 1–10 Chapter 4: Variations 11-20 Chapter 5: Variations 21–28 Chapter 6: Variations 29–32 Chapter 7: Var. 33 and Coda Appendix: Musical Examples Bibliography About the Author
