Piano Trio Variations op.121a (Beethoven)

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The variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu" op. 121a in G minor / G major are a work of variations for the piano trio by Ludwig van Beethoven .

Emergence

Despite the publication of the work in 1824, it is estimated that it was made around 1802/03. This dating goes back to the music researcher Bernd Edelmann, who justifies his assumption with stylistic aspects.

This means that op.121 was written in close proximity to Beethoven's piano variation works, op.34, and the Eroica variations, op.35 .

To the music

The theme of the work comes from the song Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu (actually I am the tailor Wetz and Wetz ) from the singspiel The Sisters of Prague by Wenzel Müller (music) and Joachim Perinet (libretto), which was premiered in 1794 . Müller's Kakadu-Lied, on the other hand, is similar in its melody to the aria Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte .

The work is introduced by a serious G minor chord before the actual theme begins. Bernd Edelmann sees this as a contradiction to the usual conventions of the genre. After two tones of sigh, eighth notes d³ and d² give the serious character of the introduction an ironic undertone. The theme develops during the introduction until it can be heard in full from measure 38 ff., With a few pre-arranged seventh chords .

According to the musicologist Wolfgang Osthoff , "the most painful accusations" form a caricaturing contrast to the cheerful and easy subject. The 24 bars of the theme consist of three equally long sections.

Conventionally designed figural variations represent variations 1 to 4.

Variation 9 is an Adagio espressivo in G minor. His principle of distributing the theme head in the openwork movement to the strings can already be found in the trio The flocks shall leave the mountains from Georg Friedrich Handel's oratorio Acis and Galatea and Handel's trio sonata in G minor HWV 387, the musical basis of the trio. The baroque character of this variation is underlined by its contrapuntal elements.

Variation 10 is initially a conventional figural variation, but leaves this framework with the piano, which climbs up to d4 with his. This is followed by a four-part fugato , the four-tone g1-a1-b1-c² of which is a variation of the theme, but is now used in terms of motifs. From bar 398 the main theme returns in the function of a recapitulation and summarizes the elements of the variations such as counterpoint countermovement and openwork work .

The theme is repeated in the final coda .

literature

supporting documents

  • Ares Wolf: Chamber music for piano and string instruments. , in: Sven Hiemke (Ed.): Beethoven-Handbuch. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-02153-3

further reading

  • Bernd Edelmann: Wenzel Müller's song from the »Schneider Wetz« and Beethoven's Trio Variations op. 121a , In: Beethovens Klaviertrios , Symposion München, ed. by Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra weber-Bockholdt, pp. 76–102
  • Wolfgang Osthoff : The slow introductions to Beethoven's piano trios (op.1 no.2, op.121a, op.70 no.2) . In: Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra Weber-Bockholdt (eds.): Beethoven's piano trios. Symposium Munich 1990. Munich 1992. pp. 119–129.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Edelmann: Wenzel Müller's song from the »Schneider Wetz« and Beethoven's Trio Variations op. 121a , In: Beethovens Klaviertrios , Symposion München, ed. by Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra Weber-Bockholdt , p. 76f. and p. 92ff.
  2. ↑ Lewis Lockwood: Beethoven's “Kakadu” Variations, Op. 121A. A Study in Paradox. In: Bruce Brubaker, Jane Gottlieb (Ed.): Pianist, Scholar, Connoisseur: Essays in Honor of Jacob Latin. Pendragon Press, Stuyvesant NY 2000, ISBN 1-57647-001-6 , pp. 95–108, here p. 95 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  3. ↑ Joachim Perinet, Wenzel Müller: The Sisters of Prague: A Singspiel in two acts. Libretto. Schmid, Nürnberg 1796, p. 8 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  4. ↑ Bernd Edelmann: Wenzel Müller's song from the »Schneider Wetz« and Beethoven's Trio Variations op. 121a , In: Beethovens Klaviertrios , Symposion München, ed. by Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra weber-Bockholdt, p. 102
  5. ↑ : Wolfgang Osthoff : The slow introductions to Beethoven's piano trios (op.1 no.2, op.121a, op.70 no.2) . In: Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra Weber-Bockholdt (eds.): Beethoven's piano trios. Symposium Munich 1990. Munich 1992. p. 122
  6. ↑ Bernd Edelmann: Wenzel Müller's song from the “Schneider Wetz” and Beethoven's Trio Variations op. 121a , In: Beethovens Klaviertrios , Symposion München, ed. by Rudolf Bockholdt and Petra weber-Bockholdt, p. 89