94836
CD1 59’01 Ludwig van Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by A. Diabelli Op.120
CD2 77’21 50 Variations on a Waltz
1 Thema. Vivace 2 Var. I Alla marcia maestoso 3 Var. II Poco allegro 4 Var. III L’istesso tempo 5 Var. IV Un poco più vivace 6 Var. V Allegro vivace 7 Var. VI Allegro ma non troppo e serioso 8 Var. VII Un poco più allegro 9 Var. VIII Poco vivace 10 Var. IX Allegro pesante e risoluto 11 Var. X Presto 12 Var. XI Allegretto 13 Var. XII Un poco più moto 14 Var. XIII Vivace 15 Var. XIV Grave e maestoso 16 Var. XV Presto scherzando 17 Var. XVI Allegro 18 Var. XVII 19 Var. XVIII Poco moderato 20 Var. XIX Presto 21 Var. XX Andante
1 Anton Diabelli Thema 0’55 2 Ignatz Assmayer Var.1, 1’19 Moderato 3 Carl Maria von Bocklet 1’08 Var.2, Vivace 4 Leopold Eustache Czapek 0’56 Var.3, Vivace molto legato 5 Carl Czerny Var.4 1’00 6 Joseph Czerny Var.5 1’38 7 Moritz Graf von Dietrichstein 0’58 Var.6, Tempo vivo del Thema 8 Joseph Drechsler Var.7, Quasi 2’58 Ouverture, Adagio – Allegro 9 A. Emanuel Förster Var.8, 5’32 Capriccio. Allegro 10 Jacob Freystaedtler Var.9 1’41 11 Johann Gänsbacher Var.10 1’11 12 Abbé Josef Celinek Var.11 1’04 13 Anton Halm Var.12 0’52 14 Joachim Hoffmann Var.13, 1’18 Vivo 15 Johann Horzalka Var.14, 2’42 Adagio
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0’52 2’05 0’55 1’39 1’00 0’58 1’58 1’05 1’24 1’46 0’39 1’14 1’09 1’13 5’05 0’38 1’03 1’03 1’57 0’58 2’25
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
Var. XXI Allegro con 1’24 brio – Meno allegro Var. XXII Allegro molto alla 0’49 “Notte e giorno a faticar” di Mozart Var. XXIII Allegro assai 0’56 Var. XXIV Fughetta. Andante 3’33 Var. XXV Allegro 0’46 Var. XXVI 1’21 Var. XXVII Vivace 1’07 Var. XXVIII Allegro 1’03 Var. XXIX Adagio ma non 1’22 troppo Var. XXX Andante, sempre 2’08 cantabile Var. XXXI Largo molto, 5’32 espressivo Var. XXXII Fuga. Allegro 3’12 Var. XXXIII Tempo di 4’22 Menuetto moderato (ma non tirarsi dietro)
16 Joseph Huglmann Var.15, 0’58 Allegro 17 Johann Nepomuk Hummel 0’33 Var.16 18 Anselm Hüttenbrenner 1’32 Var.17 19 Frederic Kalkbrenner Var.18, 0’38 Allegro non troppo 20 Friedrich August Kanne 0’51 Var.19 21 Joseph Kerzkowsky Var.20, 1’52 Moderato con espressione 22 Conradin Kreutzer Var.21, 1’06 Vivace 23 Eduard von Lannoy (Baron) 0’45 Var.22 24 Maximilian Joseph Leidesdorf 1’16 Var.23 25 Franz Liszt Var.24, Allegro 0’35 26 Joseph Mayseder Var.25 0’46 27 Ignatz Moscheles Var.26 0’55 28 Jgnaz Franz von Mosel Var.27 0’53 29 Franz Xaver Wolfgang 1’40 3
Mozart Var.28, Con fuoco 30 Joseph Panny Var.29, 2’01 Allegro con brio 31 Hieronymus Payer Var.30 1’14 32 Johann Peter Pixis Var.31 1’39 33 Wenzel Planchy Var.32, 0’39 Con fuoco 34 Gottfried Rieger Var.33, 1’45 Allegro ma non troppo 35 Philipp Jakob Riotte 1’51 Var.34, Allegro 36 Franz Roser Var.35 0’36 37 Johann Schenk Var.36, 2’25 Caprice. Moderato 38 Franz Schoberlechner Var.37 0’29 39 Franz Schubert Var.38 1’56 40 Simon Sechter Var.39, 1’21 Imitatio quasi Canon, a 3 voci 41 S. R. D. (Serenissimus Rudolfus 3’00 Dux - Archduke of Austria) Var.40, Fuga. Allegro 42 Abbé Maximilian Stadler 1’01 Var.41
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43 Joseph de Szalay Var.42 44 Václav Tomaschek Var.43, Polonaise. Tempo giusto. 45 Michael Umlauff Var.44, Presto 46 Friedrich Dyonisius Weber Var.45, Con fuoco 47 Franz Weber Var.46, Brillante 48 Karl Angelus von Winkhler Var.47, Allegro con fuoco 49 Franz Weiss Var.48 50 Johann Wittassek Var.49, Un poco moderato 51 Jan Václav Worzischek Var.50 52 Carl Czerny Coda 53 Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart Var.28a 54 Gottfried Rieger Var.33a
Pier Paolo Vincenzi piano
0’39 1’08 1’06 2’15 1’36 1’39 1’44 0’55 1’00 2’54 1’29 0’59
In 1819, thirty-eight year old Anton Diabelli, a good musician and established publisher, became the organizer of the “Patriotic Association of Artists”, promoting a kind of album, an expression of the very diverse and composite musical universe of the AustroHungarian Empire. The idea, simple in theory yet a stroke of genius when viewed from a different perspective, is easy to describe: to invite musicians to compose a variation on a theme of his invention, 32 measures that would serve as a common denominator for the drafting of a “collective national monument”. A project said to be inspired by genius in many respects, first and foremost from an editorial point of view. During this period, Diabelli was becoming known as one of the brightest entrepreneurs in his field, and only the year before he had become a partner of Pietro Cappi, thereby consolidating his authority in the publishing industry. Creating important relationships with such a large number of musicians in a single step was certainly an astute business move. An important political point should be noted here. In the vast and varied Empire, where the co-existence between Austrians, Croats, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians and Serbs was often strained, there is no doubt that any cultural operation aiming to celebrate the unity of the Empire itself was definitely a valuable support to administrative and bureaucratic centralization. Last but not least, there is also the aspect linked closest to the musical environment of the epoch: Diabelli was certain to receive a positive response from the majority of those called upon, if only due to an underlying desire for comparison (competition?) between the various personalities of the time. The request was almost a challenge to demonstrate musical creativity with an instrument in full evolution, one which offered numerous possibilities in terms of innovation. Whatever the main purpose of the operation, over a period of almost 5 years, no fewer than 51 composers responded to Diabelli’s call, including, in his own way, Beethoven. Some of these composers are now part of the empyrean of the history of western music. Franz Liszt, just eleven years old, Schubert, Hummel, Czerny, and with them a number of other important and popular musical personalities of the time: Kalkbrenner, Huttenbrenner, Pixis to name a few. Then we find Franz Weber, Winkler, Szalay and others, who have since vanished almost without a trace. Their contribution remains an 5
important and valuable witness to their craftsmanship, if not art. Distinguished amateurs also responded to the call, including the Archduke Rudolf of Austria who wrote no less than a variation in the form of a fugue. A curious, even bizarre fresco of the most important piano schools of the time was created, involving not only schools of music, but also generations of musicians: from the contribution of Stadler, who was over seventy, to eleven year old Liszt, there stretched a world full of activity. The instruments of the age were also in evolution. There is no doubt that many contributions were designed with an intent to maximize the expressive possibilities of the new keyboards. Musicians were asked to perform extraordinary, dynamic contrasts of timbre and the range of notes was exploited well beyond the five octaves of early pianos. On the other hand, there were also variations where no or almost no dynamic or timbric reference was made, where the music was “confined” to the lower registers, as if to not ask too much of or be too daring with this new, increasingly popular and successful instrument. This is the reason why a wide range of pianoforte of various capabilities and designs co-existed and remained in use throughout the early years of the nineteenth century. We can speak therefore of an extremely diverse and composite fresco, understandably devoid of the structural unity usually found in a cycle of variations written by a single composer. There is much virtuosity, of course, and also occasionally clear limitations in the compositional study, a certain amount of rhetoric for its own sake, and some redundancy. Then, along with sheets of non-undisputed poetic inspiration, which are however definitely interesting for the exploration and comparison of individual musical personalities, we find incredible jewels, peaks that provide a clear answer to the question of why some of these composers have remained in oblivion while others reached the Olympus of the greats. The variation from Schubert is one clear example. It is one of those pages in which all the poetry that can be drawn from the reworking of a theme like this one is condensed. Few notes, everything just whispered, in complete awareness that this new instrument is capable of saying everything in simple terms. I felt it therefore important to record these variations, highlighting the lack of structural unit: instead of 6
deceiving the listener into believing they are faced with a unified architecture, making them search for the narrative where there is none, I believed it was more accurate, more true to the original spirit of the publication, to make clear the variety of the artists and “music artisans” who animated the Austro-Hungarian Empire nearly 200 years ago. Beethoven, for some time at the height of his fame and the authority in the Viennese music world, was among the contributors. Despite friendly relations with many of the other respondents, he refused to compete in such a “modest” project, but promised to deliver a cycle of variations to Diabelli within a short time, “around 1820”, according to the testimony of Czerny and Schindler. In actual fact, Beethoven not deliver the work until 1823. The first cycle of variations, 23 of the final 33, was completed by summer 1819. He stopped composing them for over two years, recommencing between 1822 and 1823. The development was anything but linear, and the sources are sometimes difficult to decipher. Although the autograph score and the first edition give us an overall and almost final view of the work, even more interesting are the notebooks (Wittgenstein, Landsberg, Engelmann, Montauban) and a number of loose papers that bear witness to the troubled processing and almost a growth in interest in the work that, according to the testimony of Czerny, Beethoven had branded as “variations on a cobbler’s patch”. And so the 33 “Veränderungen” Op.120, one of the greatest monuments in the universal history of piano literature, came about. Veränderungen, or variations: the name has long been a subject of discussion, delving deep into the work itself to find out why the Latin word “Variationen” was not used for the title. I continue to believe that, despite the fascinating ideas proposed by many scholars and performers on the peculiarities of the production process and the transfiguration of Diabelli’s theme, the German term is meant as an implicit adherence to the original spirit of the commission, which was to create a basically “patriotic” work to celebrate the cultural unity of the empire. The bibliography on the 120 is practically endless, as is the abundance of critical editions of the score. Valuable, and perhaps definitive in terms of completeness and analysis of the sources and the creative process, is the magnificent work of William Kindermann, who also commented on the extraordinary 7
edition of the manuscript and the first edition by the Beethoven Haus in Bonn in 2010, the publication of reference for our recording. It is obviously not my intention to hazard any musicological analysis of this masterpiece. Herein, I can only evoke the thousand characters found in these pages, the irony, the enormous time dilation, the inventive freshness, to emphasize the pioneering harmonic elaboration which caused Schoenberg in his Structural Functions of Harmony to say “ in respect of its harmony, deserves to be called the most adventurous work by Beethoven”. In finishing, we cannot avoid, referring to the perfect structural unit of the work, a thread that links the subject with the final minuet and manages to combine the extraordinary diversity of faces, impressions, colours and moods within a single narrative. While we have chosen the Beethoven-Haus edition from 2010 as our text of reference for Beethoven’s variations, for the 50 variations (plus a coda written by Czerny as his second contribution to the work) I have relied on both publications of reference: the facsimile of the original edition by Diabelli Et Comp. from 1824, published in 1986 by “Studio Per Edizioni Scelte – Florence”, and the annotated edition from 1983 published by the ‘’Akademische Druck - u. Verlagsanstalt” by Günter Brooch. The latter edition gives us two additional variations, by Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart and Gottfried Rieger, neither of which is included in the original collection. I have one last comment for the listener. Recording Beethoven’s Op.120 was a unique experience, just as it is every time I play it for the public in concert. These music sheets do not offer a point of arrival: every time, new details are discovered, new perspectives are felt, new emotions are experienced. This, however, should not prevent a musician from wanting to contribute his or her own ideas to a recording, as long as they are guided by two main principles: deep respect for the text, and an awareness of dealing with something considerably greater than themselves, something that can never be used with ὕβρις (Hubris) as a means of self-celebration and display of virtuosity. There is too much music here to worry about ourselves. © Pier Paolo Vincenzi 8
Pier Paolo Vincenzi Born in Orvieto in 1980, Pier Paolo Vincenzi began studying the piano at a very young age in his hometown. In 1999, he graduated from a humanities-oriented secondary school with a grade of 100/100. At the age of 20, he received a Diploma in Piano from Terni’s G. Briccialdi Institute with the highest possible grades and honours. He continued taking post-graduate courses at the Sesto Fiorentino Music School under the guidance of Pier Narciso Masi and participated in numerous masterclasses with him. He also attended 9
Masi’s class at the “Incontri col Maestro” International Academy in Imola, receiving a three-year Master’s Degree in Duo Chamber Music in 2007. He attends masterclasses held by teachers such as Massimiliano Damerini, Alexander Lonquich and Guido Salvetti and Martin Hughes. His busy concert schedule takes him to many cities to perform recitals, as a soloist with orchestra and in chamber groups, earning praise from the public and critics everywhere. He is a piano teacher at the the Municipal Schools of Music of Scandicci (FI) and at the Accademia Musicale in Florence. He also teaches Chamber Music at the Accademia Musicale and Harmony at Centro Studi Musica e Arte in Florence. A 2CD set of complete Wagner piano works, issued in March 2013 by Brilliant Classics (94450), was universally well received by critics, and was featured internationally by the German radio stations MDR Figaro and WDR5; Radio Switzerland’s RSI Due Network; the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and the prestigious cultural supplement of Der Spiegel; Il Venerdì di Repubblica, the Italian weekly Cultural supplement; and Classic Voice, Fanfare, Diapason, and American Record Guide magazines. Pier Paolo Vincenzi also has a degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Perugia.
Pier Paolo Vincenzi piano Recorded: May–September 2014, Bartokstudio, Bernareggio (MB), Italy Sound Engineer: Raffaele Cacciola Piano: Steinway D-274 Photo of Pier Paolo Vincenzi by Charlotte Politi Front cover image: Die Intimen bei Beethoven by Albert Graefle, c.1892 p & © 2015 Brilliant Classics 10
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