Beethoven: 10 Variations on 'La stessa, la stessissima', WoO 73

Introduction

Antonio Salieri was a teacher of Beethoven, much admired by him. Despite his somewhat tarnished reputation today, Salieri was a popular and respected composer in Europe in the latter seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Beethoven, ever interested, it seems, in fashioning variations after attractive melodies in popular operas of his day, found one much to his liking in his teacher's opera Falstaff, the theme from the duet "La Stessa, la Stessissima."

This was especially a time when Beethoven was turning out works in the variation genre: that same year he also wrote Eight Variations for Piano, in F major, on Sussmayer's "Tändeln und Scherzen," WoO. 76, and Seven Variations for Piano, in F major, on the quartet "Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen" from Winter's Das unterbrochene Operfest. He had already written many other variation sets based on themes in other operas, three such examples in 1795 alone, including Twelve Variations for Piano, in C major, on Haibel's "Menuet à la Viganò," WoO. 68.

Here, in these Salieri variations, Beethoven takes the theme, a sort of stop-and-start creation of rather simple charm that would not seem fertile enough to yield much in the way of variation, and uses it as a springboard to extract a harvest of rich invention. As he had done with the Sussmayer "Tändeln und Scherzen" variations, he employs a subtle scheme in which the variations appear in a logical pattern: tempos become generally livelier or slower, moving from one variation to the next, and rhythms also evolve.

There is also a sense of rising and falling to the shape of the variations themselves: the musical trajectory of the generally happy themes of the first several seem to veer upward and downward continually. Some of the others also display this characteristic.

The fifth variation departs somewhat from the tempo pattern, with its suddenly slower gait and grimmer mood. The sixth and seventh variations are happy and vivacious, while the eighth shares something with the fifth, but is less dark. The last two are brilliant and colorful. The composer returns to the opening tempo and mood with the reprise of the theme, which is now somewhat transformed.

This work was first published in Vienna in 1799. Beethoven dedicated it to Countess Barbara Odescalchi (Keglevics). A typical performance of these variations lasts from twelve to fourteen minutes.

Parts/Movements

1. Thema: Andante con moto -
2. Variation 1 -
3. Variation 2 -
4. Variation 3 -
5. Variation 4 -
6. Variation 5 -
7. Variation 6 -
8. Variation 7 -
9. Variation 8 -
10. Variation 9 -
11. Variation 10: Allegretto (alla Austriaca) - Tempo 1