33 Verändrungen über einen Walzer für das Piano-forte componirt, und Der Frau Antonia von Brentano gebornen Edlen von Birkenstorck hochachtungsvoll zugeeignet ... 120tes Werk ... 2fl. 45x. C.M. 5fl. 30x. W.W.

Wien: Cappi und Diabelli, Graben No. 1133 [PN C. et D. No. 1380], 1823. Oblong folio. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [3] (blank), 4- 43 pp. Engraved throughout. "Gestochen v: Jos: Sigg" printed at lower right of page 43. Watermark letters "UFF." Housed in a custom made black linen clamshell box with dark red leather label gilt to spine.

Slightly browned and soiled; repairs to spine. A very good, wide-margined copy overall. First Edition, early issue of the "Diabelli" Variations. New Kinsky, p. 772-73. Dorfmüller-Weinhold, p. 229. Hoboken 2, 484.

"The publisher Diabelli commissioned 50 composers to write a variation apiece on his (truncated) theme and was delighted to receive 33 from Beethoven, immediately recognizing the work as a major masterpiece." Grove Music Online

"The Diabelli Variations were begun in 1819, completed in 1823, and published in June 1823 by Cappi and Diabelli, who perceptively announced it as 'a great and important masterpiece worthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the old Classics,' entitled 'to a place beside Sebastian Bach's famous masterpiece in the same form.' (Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis, p. 124). Bachian tendencies are much in evidence here, especially in the many contrapuntal variations and in the extended double fugue of variation 32. Beethoven combines melodic and harmonic variation techniques, both as Mozart had done before him and in accordance with his own practice in the Variations, op. 35, and in the finale of the Eroica Symphony. ...

The Variations is a work in which extremes meet to an extent previously unknown even in Beethoven's music. ...

The Diabelli Variations was Beethoven's last extended work for piano. ... With the Bagatelles, op. 126, and the Diabelli Variations, Beethoven became a master miniaturist, capable of sketching a variety of emotional states in a few quick tone strokes." Solomon, pp. 304-05. (Inventory #: 39510)