The Unknown Diabelli Variations.

[Guest]

Quietly surfing for some intellectual enlightenment, I had not realized that Diabelli’s invitation was indeed taken up by other composers to Beethoven, and that their variations were also published, the Beethoven submission being published as Part I Väterlandischer Künstlerverein, and the remaining 50 Variations from the remaining composers (including the eight year old Liszt) as Part II Väterlandischer Künstlerverein.

It would be fascinating to hear what other composers made of this harmless little waltz (I’ve never really consider it all that trite, if truth be known). Does a recording exist?

Mario

[Pianorak]

Found the following on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diabelli-Variations-Michiels/dp/B000MGB0F6/ref=sr_1_32?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1304230034&sr=1-32

[Auferstehen2]

I am ever so grateful to you Pianorak. I'm flying into Manchester next weekend, and will order this straight away from Forsyth.

Thanks again,

Mario

[Pianorak]

My pleasure entirely! Just found another one (but a bit on the expensive side)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Diabelli-Variations-Ludwig-van/dp/B0000263PM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304232128&sr=1-1

[Roehre]

auferstehen, you might be interested in this article:http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page...e+records,+nas,.

The 2nd (expensive) Buchbinder set is very recommendable, but you just have to find it, through e=bay e.g.

[Auferstehen2]

As usual, I end up being a little confused (not surprisingly).

As the first recommendation by the helpful Pianorak was SACD only, this has to be abandoned, but why on earth is his second recommendation so expensive? And is it a complete recording of ALL 50 variations?

Can anyone shed some light please?

Roehre, your suggestion is just a booklet, am I right?

(Apologies for my denseness {or is it density???})

Mario

[Pianorak]

As usual, I end up being a little confused (not surprisingly).

Welcome to the club!

Have just had a look at The New Grove : . . . The firm also published the Vaterlaendischer Kuenstlerverein, incl. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, op. 120. - Diabelli's intention in 1819 in sending his waltz theme to every composer he considered important in Austria was ostensibly to form a "patriotic anthology"; but this altruism was mixed with sound practical sense, as in an age of domestic music-making he could be sure that a collection of short pieces by the best composers would catch public attention and purse. Not every composer responded, but by 1824 the inclusion of the German composer Kalkbrenner, visiting on a Vienna concert tour, brought the total to about 50, and a coda by Czerny concluded the set. . .

HTH. Sorry, can't be more helpful.

[Don Petter]

At least one on-line site lists Pianorak's suggestion as being a hybrid SACD, but I'd tread carefully.

There was a mainstream label issue by Rudolph Buchbinder on Teldec and Warner (same CD), but I think it's now deleted, and only showing up at inflated prices from Amazon vendors and the like.

[Roehre]

Roehre, your suggestion is just a booklet, am I right?

Auferstehen,
the link is to further background information to the 50 + 33 Diabelli-variations by Diabelli et al + Beethoven's.

[Auferstehen2]

Thank you all.

Oh well, let's see if Forsyth of Manchester can track it down for me for collection next week.

Again, most grateful

Mario

[hafod]

The Jan Michiels version on Audiomax suggested by Pianorak is the Beethoven Op 120 supplemented by variations from Czerny, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Liszt, Moscheles, Sechter, Pixis, Rudolf, Tomasek & Schubert.
There is alternative played by Ian Fountain on Meridian (Meridian: CDE84424) that excludes the Beethoven and consists of variations by: Dreschler, Bocklet, Moscheles, Czapek, Mayseder, Rieger, Weber, Kreutzer, Horzalka, Roser, Liszt, Kerzkowsky, Riotte, Joseph & Carl Czerny, Assmayer, Mosel, Mozart, Leidesdorf; Rieger, Worzischek, Halm, Kanne, Huttenbrenner, Panny, Kalkbrenner, Schubert, “S.R.D.”, Tomaschek, Freystaedtler, Umlauff, Winkler and Wittassek; Czerny.

Presto has the latter for £12.75 (where the above information comes from), but the cheapest appears to be £9.99 from HMV.

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/simpleMultiSearch.do?searchUID=&pGroupID=music&adultFlag=false&simpleSearchString=CDE84424&primaryID=music&btnSubmitSearch.x=18&btnSubmitSearch.y=11

[hafod]

I now see that the Meridian 'Diabelli' is out of stock at HMV. That may be because I bought the last copy soon after making my post above.

[Bryn]

auferstehen, you might be interested in this article:http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page...e+records,+nas,.

The 2nd (expensive) Buchbinder set is very recommendable, but you just have to find it, through e=bay e.g.

That's asztonishing. When I bought that Buchbinder set, back in January 2008 via amazon uk marketplace (from what is now Tower USA, but was Caiman at that time) it cost just £13.19 plus £1.24 p&p. I'd wait for it to be reissued at a low price again if I were you.

However, I see that play.com claim to be able to supply the Buchbinder set for £15.99 including p&p, and asda, sendit, etc. also claim to be able to supply it for, for £18.79.

The set I would dearly like to see on CD is the selection of some 34 from the 50 'also rans' recorded by Jorg Demus, using fortepianos by Graf and Broadwood, and issued in a double LP album along with Beethoven's Op. 120. My LPs of that set are now all but unplayable due to lending them. They have never yet appeared on CD. Come on Universal. If they were good enough for the Archiv LP double album ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

These attempts to bring together contributions from a number of composers rarely produces anything great, but the results can be interesting, nevertheless.
Other examples include:

4 Improvisations by Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov and Taneyev

Paraphrases (Variations on Chopsticks) by Liadov, Cui, Rimski-Korsakov, Borodin and others (including a sketch by Liszt).