Despite being awarded an opus number, the Opus 76 Piano Variations is a minor work, much less interesting musically than the WoO 80 variations in the form of a chaconne (Day 200). Yet, in its simplicity, brevity, and good-natured vulgarity, the Opus 76 Variations are great fun.
#Beethoven250 Day 225
6 Variations for Piano in D Major (Opus 76), 1809
I’m not sure if Hungarian pianist Ervin Nagy is playing this as part of a concert program or an encore piece, but it works either way.
Beethoven’s Opus 76 Piano Variations are sometimes called the “Turkish March” Variations because of the Turkish flavor to the theme, and because Beethoven reused the theme two years later for the Turkish March section of his incidental music for The Ruins of Athens (Opus 113).
#Beethoven250 Day 225
6 Variations for Piano in D Major (Opus 76), 1809
David Korevaar keeping himself sane during quarantine.
After the last Presto variation, two soft isolated notes seem to signal a confusion about how to end. Then the theme comes back, quite confidently, but not providing a proper ending either. (These are not the Goldberg Variations, after all.)
Beethoven’s solution: “More coda!”
In an 1889 article, German musicologist Frederich Niecks found the more Turkish-sounding variations in Opus 76 to be “grotesque rather than characteristic,” and included Opus 76 among Beethoven's works that “have shown us how low a man of genius may fall.”
#Beethoven250 Day 225
6 Variations for Piano in D Major (Opus 76), 1809
This is a work well suited for a period piano with percussion, cymbals, and a variety of timbres.
Opus 76 is Beethoven’s last set of piano variations for a decade, until he began playing around with a silly little waltz by Anton Diabelli.