Beethoven: 9 Variations on a March by Dressler, WoO 63

Introduction

Beethoven himself revealed that this work and his three piano sonatas (in E flat major, F minor, and D major, WoO 47) were his first works. The date of composition of the Dressler Variations is often given in reference works as 1783, the year the piece was published. But it appears the young Beethoven actually composed the piece the year before that.

The work is quite good, considering the youth of its creator. The march theme by Dressler is rather simple and stiff-sounding in its generally serious demeanor -- it is the kind of innocuous melody that might be arranged for first-year piano students. Beethoven's variations, while hardly brilliant, clearly infuse life into the somewhat naive melody. It is not surprising that they show the influence of Mozart. For one thing, the melody remains recognizable throughout all nine variations, and many features are only slightly changed in certain of them. One aspect of Beethoven's later style that does emerge here is his characteristic nervous energy, which propels much of the music in the later variations. The last one is perhaps the most inventive and certainly the most colorful, bringing some fireworks and divulging the youthful composer's already deft climactic sense.