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Has anyone played these? How do they compare to his sonatas as far as difficulty? I'm going to be starting these variations soon (if the stinking music ever comes in), and I'm just wondering what I've got to look forward to.
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Here's the link form Sheetmusicarchives: http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/dlpage_new.cfm?composition_id=728 Kreisler probably teaches this piece a lot, so he would know better. In the meantime, I would say it's more difficult than, say, op 2#1. It has some tricky double note, and scale passages, but each variation os pretty short. Also, playing variations is very different from playing sonatas.
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What to look forward to? Hard work! These and the Diabelli Variations are two of Beethoven's best--by most 'authorities'--and are somewhat 'top of the line' in difficulty and musicianship. You should enjoy them and expand or utilize your technique at the same time.
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it's probably much easier than Diabelli variations. i can't play it but love it!
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Hard but very pianistic. Op.31/3 is the closest sonata I can think of in difficutly that I have played. The variations are quite technically nutritious too I would think.
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QUOTE: Beethoven's contempt of this grand composition is incomprehensible. We are told that he once found a young lady practising it, and after listening awhile asked: "By whom is that?" "By you," she returned wonderingly. "Such nonsense by me? O Beethoven, what an *** you were!" Musicians rank it among his finest works, and of all the variations it is the oftenest played and best liked by concertgoers.
Literature of the Piano-- Hutcheson and Ganz
I thought you might like that little vignette!
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some comments on this from Charles Rosen: The C minor variations for piano, written in 1806, quickly became popular. As the only set to take up the Baroque form again, it stands apart from all Beethoven's other variations. It is, stylistically, a remarkably prescient work as well, a forecast of the revival of Baroque rhythmic development and harmonic movement that was to produce Romanticism, or its musical form. The piece was to become the basis for Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses. Beethoven's set follows Handel's passacaglia form closely, imposing only a classically articulated sense of climax within the phrase and over the series of variations, as the first generation of Romantic composers were to do. Its immediate popularity testifies to the direction in which music and taste was moving. Beethoven was not happy about this essay in early Romanticism, professing later to be ashamed of it.
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It's a fantastic work. The difficulty ranks somewhere around the more difficult pre-Op. 31 sonatas. (But not nearly as long.)
In a lot of ways, it's the closest Beethoven ever got to writing a set of etudes. Many of the figurations used in the variations are those used throughout Beethoven's works, and it's a great recital work as well!
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt) www.pianoped.comwww.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed
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I put this work together not too long ago and it was a wonderful experience. It was, curiously, only recently that I got to know this piece and it immediately grabbed me; I found the theme haunting me (in a really good way) and I started working on it and each successive variation would become my obssessor for the time I was working on it. I have had, and continue to have, a continuously thrilling, revealing and rewarding relationship with this work and I encourage all others to make its aquaintance if not intimacy .
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I played the piece recently. It is an excellent piece to learn idioms Beethoven used in his music. I think you can find almost any technical problems you'll see up in Beethoven sonatas up to Appassionata. Obviously it is a fantastic music by itself. What I found most difficult was bringing the variations (fragments rather since they are only eight bars long!) together in a whole convincing manner. Keep in mind that there are fast slow and fast moments within it like a multi-movement sonata.
I am curious about your opinions on the tempo as a whole. I was learned to keep the tempo strict throughout variations, but the characters of fast-moving and slow ones are hard to grasp.
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Mr E - have you started these yet? Any initial comments?
My teacher said I should consider starting them soon.
If you don't talk to your children about equal temperment, who will?
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I finally got the music in, but I'm about to finish up Rachmaninoff Prelude Op.32 No.1 and Chopin Ballade No.1 Op.23. I'm also working on Rachmaninoff Etude-tableaux Op.33 (the fourth one, which is actually No.5). So I'm waiting to really start the variations, until I finish the Prelude and Ballade, hopefully in about 2 weeks. I have fooled around with it though, and for the most part it looks likes it will be more tricky, than difficult.
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Hmmm - I suspect I'll find them both tricky and difficult! You seem like a pretty advanced player, for me the variations are a stretch.
Post back again once you really 'start' them. I'm a couple of weeks from diving into them myself.
If you don't talk to your children about equal temperment, who will?
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This piece isn't that difficult, but it takes patience to go through all 32 variations, like all theme and variations, they are just long, gets a little boring after a while.
Although I think Brhams Theme and Variation on the theme by Haydn is rather interesting, one of those will keep me awake.
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Originally posted by elfen: I played the piece recently. It is an excellent piece to learn idioms Beethoven used in his music. I think you can find almost any technical problems you'll see up in Beethoven sonatas up to Appassionata. Obviously it is a fantastic music by itself. What I found most difficult was bringing the variations (fragments rather since they are only eight bars long!) together in a whole convincing manner. Keep in mind that there are fast slow and fast moments within it like a multi-movement sonata.
I am curious about your opinions on the tempo as a whole. I was learned to keep the tempo strict throughout variations, but the characters of fast-moving and slow ones are hard to grasp. Slightly tangential, but there is a very good recording by Anatoly Vedernikov. He plays with such precision and passion, and, surprisngly, doesn't do the repeats. Better than Perahia and Uchida..
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Schubert may have borrowed the theme for the first movement of his D.958 sonata, incidentally in the same key. I noticed that myself, and was needless to say pretty proud.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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