diabelli variations

WITH

für elise

andante favori

GERARD

WILLEMSStuart & Sons piano

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Gerard Willems and the Beethoven ProjectAt a dinner in 2000 to mark the end of his recording of all Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, I challengedGerard Willems to record the five piano concertos and the 33 ‘Diabelli’ Variations. He had littlehesitation agreeing to the former, but the Diabelli was another matter altogether. Along with the‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata, this enigmatic Beethoven composition taxes the hardiest pianist. In lightof what Gerard had endured over the previous three years, such a dare was undoubtedly poortiming on my part that cold June evening; but I persisted over the next few years, albeit with a‘softly, softly’ approach. It has paid off with this historic recording.

As with the sonata and concerto recordings, Gerard’s choice of instrument would be a vitalingredient for maintaining the originality of sound established on the previous 12 CDs. The Stuart& Sons pianos, then in the early stages of development, gave Beethoven’s magnificent oeuvre aunique Australian voice. In the years since, Wayne Stuart has continued making hand-craftedinstruments at his state-of-the-art facility in Newcastle, north of Sydney. When Gerard finallyrelented, Wayne had just put the finishing touches to his 43rd grand piano: certainly no ordinaryinstrument, it was a one-off with two additional octaves. The prospect of having Beethoven’s lastmajor piano work recorded using the world’s latest piano was a very exciting one indeed. Theextra notes add what the maker describes as an ‘orchestral soul’ to a work such as the DiabelliVariations through the resonance from the extra strings. Listening to the sound Willemsproduces, you instantly understand that Beethoven didn’t write this music to be played on an1820s piano. The distinctive Stuart & Sons sound – the clarity of a fortepiano, and the dynamicrange of its modern successors – is a combination that marked the earlier recordings andcontinues to be a feature of this superb instrument: a monument to Australian innovation.

Of course none of this counts without the intricate alliance between the pianist’s mind and thecomposer’s music. Gerard Willems’ passion for Beethoven’s music is profound and his commandof the piano, unrivalled. For him, it’s all about the music, and only the music. He has given nearly15 years of his life to this Beethoven recording project, unafraid to place his interpretations on therecord for the judgment of posterity. That takes a lot of guts, hard work and an ardent belief thatnew recordings are the best way to keep timeless music alive for the next generation to discover,and for the current generation to reevaluate.

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Apart from the ‘Diabelli’ Variations, Gerard chose to record the Andante favori. This lesser-knownBeethoven work maintains a theme-and-variations narrative and offers a fascinating contrast to Op. 120. (I insisted on Für Elise for its sophisticated simplicity.)

The longevity and success of the Beethoven recording project have depended on a number ofdedicated people who have strongly believed in its cultural significance since its inception in1995. Prominent among those – apart from Gerard Willems – to whom I owe a debt of gratitudeare Robert and David Albert, Wayne and Katie Stuart, and Robert Patterson, Head of ABC Music.For this particular recording, I must also thank ABC Classics’ Artists and Repertoire Manager,Martin Buzacott, and brilliant ABC Classics recording producer, Tonmeister Virginia Read.

Brendan Ward

Beethoven Recording ProjectSydneyOctober 2010

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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 1770-1827

Thirty-Three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 [57’27]1 Tema: Vivace 0’562 Variation I: AlIa Marcia maestoso 1’513 Variation II: Poco allegro 0’504 Variation III: L’istesso tempo 1’255 Variation IV: Un poco più vivace 1’066 Variation V: Allegro vivace 1’027 Variation VI: Allegro ma non troppo e serioso 1’578 Variation VII: Un poco più allegro 1’139 Variation VIII: Poco vivace 1’360 Variation IX: Allegro pesante e risoluto 2’00! Variation X: Presto 0’43@ Variation XI: Allegretto 0’55£ Variation XII: Un poco più moto 0’57$ Variation XIII: Vivace 1’03% Variation XIV: Grave e maestoso 3’54^ Variation XV: Presto scherzando 0’46& Variation XVI: Allegro 1’11* Variation XVII: Allegro 1’08( Variation XVIII: Poco moderato 1’42) Variation XIX: Presto 1’06¡ Variation XX: Andante 2’23™ Variation XXI: Allegro con brio – Meno allegro 1’30# Variation XXII: Allegro molto 0’59¢ Variation XXIII: Allegro assai 1’04∞ Variation XXIV: Fughetta: Andante 2’54§ Variation XXV: Allegro 1’05¶ Variation XXVI: Piacevole 1’27• Variation XXVII: Vivace 1’15

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ª Variation XXVIII: Allegro 1’08º Variation XXIX: Adagio ma non troppo 1’16⁄ Variation XXX: Andante, sempre cantabile 2’25¤ Variation XXXI: Largo, molto espressivo 4’33‹ Variation XXXII: Fuga: Allegro 4’06› Variation XXXIII: Tempo di Menuetto moderato 4’00

fi Andante in F major ‘Andante favori’, WoO 57 7’59

fl Bagatelle in A minor ‘Für Elise’, WoO 59 3’23

Total Playing Time 69’13

Gerard Willems Stuart & Sons piano

Gerard Willems with Recording

Producer Virginia Read

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Beethoven’s VariationsBeethoven is frequently seen as the great hero of sonata form, that particular way of combiningthematic material and harmonic movement that is especially common in first movements ofinstrumental works, though it is also found in other positions and generic contexts. He is thought tobring an unprecedented dynamism and a fresh perspective to the handling of materials in sonata-formstructures. But the composer was arguably a greater innovator in the genre of variations. Many of theformal devices and ways of thinking hailed as new in Beethoven’s sonata forms are in fact alreadyfound and thoroughly exploited in the work of Haydn, the real difference being that Beethoven simplymakes more dramatic capital out of them. In the realm of variation, though, he has greater claim tobeing seen as a radical innovator.

A set like his Variations for Piano in F major, Op. 34, does something quite unprecedented: theconvention that each variation should be in the same key as the theme is overturned, with eachsuccessive section being in a new key. (In fact, a larger pattern evolves whereby each section is set in a tonality a third lower than that of the previous section, before the eventual return to the tonic nearthe end.) Also left behind is the principle that variations broadly retain the same character as that ofthe theme, including the time signature: in Op. 34, each section seems to ‘start again’ in a new key,metre and musical style. Of course many of Beethoven’s other variation sets do retain suchconventions, but they still tend to have points of difference from past practice. The sense that eachsection is more or less a paraphrase of the original, essentially a decorative conception, is weakened.Rather, what Beethoven is often striving for is to uncover a kind of essence to the material, a basiccore of shape or gesture or expression. This brings the way of thinking about musical material closer to his practice in sonata-form movements, which so often highlight and intensify simpleunderlying shapes.

Given this fundamental rethinking of variation form, it is understandable that Beethoven did notrespond positively when in early 1819 he was asked to contribute a single variation to a composite setby Anton Diabelli (1781-1858). Diabelli had written a waltz theme and invited a number of composersfrom the Austrian Empire each to contribute one variation. Much has been written about the supposedbanality of the theme, and that this would have been a further reason for Beethoven not to want tosully himself with such a project. However, as it was a waltz, everyone would have expected thematerial to be simple and popular in style, and this need not have prevented its being used as a basis

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for more sophisticated variation. Beethoven himself was far from being above using such simplematerials as the basis for a larger variation structure. True, the theme of the Op. 34 set is long, intricateand ‘characteristic’, but the theme of his Op. 35 ‘Eroica’ Variations is indeed far simpler than Diabelli’seffort – it shows precisely Beethoven’s interest in building a work from very fundamental premises. Inany case, though the composer rejected writing a single variation, he very quickly decided he wouldn’tmind writing an entire set based on Diabelli’s theme. By about June of 1819 he had a nearly completedraft of a work that featured 23 variations.

However, further work on the Variations was set aside as other large projects such as the Missasolemnis took over, and it was only four years later, early in 1823, that Beethoven resumed work inearnest. By this stage Diabelli had undertaken to publish Beethoven’s own complete set of variations aswell as the composite one, and was growing impatient. Beethoven moved quickly from this point. Heremoved just one of the variations from his original draft, and added eleven new ones. His Thirty-ThreeVariations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120, was published in June of that year, with an announcementmaking clear the exceptional nature of the enterprise:

We present here to the world Variations of no ordinary type, but a great and important masterpieceworthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the old Classics … more interesting from thefact that it is elicited from a theme which no one would otherwise have supposed capable of a working-out of that character … All these variations … will entitle the work to a place beside Sebastian Bach’smasterpiece in that same form.

The reference to Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations might suggest that Beethoven was conscious of this greatmodel in the same form, with its 30 variations in between the initial and final playings of the Aria onwhich they are based. Certainly it would appear that Beethoven wanted to express the musical universein his treatment of the theme, given the conspicuous variety of styles in which it is clothed andtechniques through which it is investigated – as was the case with the Op. 34 Variations, but now on anepic scale. Nearly every variation brings a new time signature and tempo marking. On the other hand,he follows tradition in retaining the tonality of C major almost throughout. Only Variations 9 and 29-31are set in C minor, which in turn leads to the fugue of No. 32 in the relative major, E flat.

The variety of styles ranges from the march of No. 1 all the way to the tempo di menuetto of No. 33, adistinctly old-fashioned dance in the 1820s next to the modern waltz that formed the starting-point forthe set. Also typical are juxtapositions of the sublime with the ridiculous, or vice versa, as happens in

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the case of Nos 13 and 14, the former representing an extreme of playfulness and the latter, Grave emaestoso, being written in an imitative dotted-rhythmic style that suggests the old French overture. Aconsiderable number of the variations express themselves quite gently, while others seem lessconcerned with expression as such than with exploring some particular aspect of the theme’s material,more process- than character-driven. Nevertheless, while each variation provides its own type ofcharacter or process, intensely realised, the ethos of the set as a whole is far less clear. Perhaps it canbest be understood as offering a sort of speculum mundi, holding a mirror up to the world, an almostcomic plurality of possibilities. Yet, given the exceptional length of the set and the concentration itdemands, both of the performer and of the listener, there is also something monumental, unyielding,even harsh about the total conception.

This could certainly not be said of the Andante favori, WoO 57. It originally formed the middlemovement of the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata, Op. 53, but according to Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries, afriend had suggested to the composer that the work was too long as it stood. On reflection Beethovenagreed, and replaced his middle movement with a shorter Adagio molto, designated as an‘Introduzione’ to the finale. The original slow movement was then published separately in 1805, ‘favori’alluding to the fact – according to another pupil, Carl Czerny – that the composer had ‘played itfrequently in society’. Yet it may have been more than a question of length. Perhaps the Andante wastoo gentle for its larger context. As part of the original Sonata it gives quite a different balance to thewhole work: its grace and serenity form a bridge to the start of the finale, which has a similardisposition. Perhaps, prompted by the criticism, Beethoven thought that such similarity failed to giveenough definition to the large-scale structure. Certainly in the now-familiar form, the sonata’s much lesslyrical, much more solemn Adagio expresses a tension that then seems to melt away in the finale.

Our Andante is written in a rondo form, with the varied returns of the theme generally retaining itsmelody but adding running bass figures and more active inner parts. The episodes in between theaccounts of the theme do not greatly change the character of the whole, and in fact the primarycontrast occurs within the theme itself. After the graceful opening, the melodic line gets stuck on asingle figure, which is really just an elaboration of one note. Building first through a crescendo offrustration, the repeated figure then dies away, and this prompts a change of harmonic colour to a key(D flat) that is far removed from the tonic of F major. At the same time a horn call is heard, pianissimo,sounding like a voice from afar, so that the passage is remote not just harmonically, but also stylisticallyand dynamically. Despite its remoteness, it soon gives way to the returning theme, and this excursion

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is retained with each recurrence of the theme until the final page. Here the music still fades into thedistance, but without leaving the tonic. That is not enough to dispel the memory of the earlier events:an interruption to G flat follows, echoing the earlier ones in D flat, but this time countered by anotherrepeated melodic cell. This swells and then fades in volume, as the original passage did, but now withthe tonic key finally secured.

If the Andante favori has lost some potential exposure in concerts and recordings by having been detachedfrom its original sonata context, being a free-standing piece has not harmed the short work known as Für

Elise, WoO 59. Nor has the fact that mystery surrounds its inception. It is not known for certain when itwas written (possibly 1810) or who ‘Elise’ was. The most likely candidate has been held to be ThereseMalfatti, a student of Beethoven’s to whom he proposed marriage in that year, but if that were the case, itis not clear how her name relates to the title, unless perhaps Elise was a pet name for Therese.

The Andante favori represents an elegant type of melodic writing that looks back to models from the later18th century. Für Elise, on the other, hand anticipates rather the Romantic genre of the short lyrical pianopiece. Here the sense of melody is less clearly defined. Rather than a real tune, we hear a leading linethat emerges out of improvisatory arpeggios. Also improvisatory in character are the very first notes wehear, which turn out to be a prolonged upbeat to the main material. At first, though, it is not clear whichof the notes carry the greater accentual weight. Beethoven soon exploits this before the main materialreturns, by sweeping up the keyboard in octave figures then prolonging the initial figure, which is reallyno more than a written-out trill. The ‘tune’ itself simply outlines rising and falling scales, so that the basicmaterial of the whole section is simple indeed. Yet the lack of clear definition of its elements lends it apeculiarly liquid quality.

Für Elise is also surely a piece that haunts the listener, melancholy yet dreamy. To some extent thesequalities inhere in the key of A minor. If keys have characteristics of this kind, it is generally lessbecause of anything intrinsic to the notes of a particular scale than simply because of weight of usage.Expressive traditions and associations grow up around keys, which subsequent composers are free toexploit or attempt to change, or even to ignore. A minor is an unusual case in that, while common inBaroque music, it was used less frequently through the latter part of the 18th century, far less than nearrelations like D minor or E minor. As the relative minor of C major, it should have remained common, yetin the work of Haydn, for example, it is scarcely known. Mozart has left us a small number ofmemorable examples, among which is his Rondo in A minor, which Beethoven might well have known.What that piece has in common with Für Elise is exactly this dreamy, slightly meandering quality.

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A minor is not, like say C minor, a key that one would naturally associate with passionate or warmexpression. Something of the same flavour emerges from a number of Chopin’s piano works written inA minor, but these could not have picked up any hints from Für Elise. The work lay unknown for decadesuntil it was rediscovered by Ludwig Nohl, who published it in 1867.

The peculiar A minor character of Für Elise is offset by two episodes that give us a brief taste of majorkeys and are more normal in their textures, with a clear melodic line supported by steadyaccompanimental figuration. On the other hand, they hardly present a dramatic contrast to the prevailingmood and are quickly over. The same also applies to the piece as a whole; after the final return of themain material it ends without the sort of phrase extension that would be expected. In keeping with theundramatic character of A minor, perhaps, Für Elise simply stops, though its strains stay with us for along time afterwards.

W. Dean Sutcliffe

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Gerard WillemsGerard Willems is Australia’s pre-eminent Beethoven interpreter and one of its finest concert pianists.His love affair with the piano began in the early fifties in Holland. There, at the age of eight, he wasawarded a professorial scholarship in pianoforte shortly before migrating with his family to Australia. He spent his early life in his new country in a migrant camp where he continued his musical studies.

Gerard Willems graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, won the distinguished QueenVictoria Piano Competition, then pursued advanced keyboard studies in Germany. After performingthroughout Europe, he returned home in 1981 to join the keyboard staff at his Alma Mater, the SydneyConservatorium, becoming a senior lecturer and, until recently, Chair of the Keyboard Unit. He hasdedicated his life to teaching young musicians, giving countless masterclasses across the UnitedKingdom, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Gerard Willems has toured extensively and his concerto repertoire ranges from the Classical works ofMozart and Beethoven through to 20th-century works of Bernstein and Gershwin. Between 1997 and2000, he recorded Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas (for ABC Classics), becoming the first Australian to doso. The internationally acclaimed recordings, which feature the Stuart & Sons piano, won two ARIAAwards, giving Willems the honour of becoming the first pianist to win the prestigious award.

In 2000, he won the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Australian Musical Scholarship, the same year hetoured Israel and held the Hephzibah Menuhin Chair in Piano as Visiting Professor at the RubinAcademy in Jerusalem. The following year he researched Early Music training in Europe and the UnitedStates before returning to Sydney to become the first Australian to record Beethoven’s five pianoconcertos (also for ABC Classics). That recording included a DVD of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto that wonthe International DVD Association’s Award for Music Excellence in 2005. He has also recorded a widevariety of Mozart’s works including the complete Piano Trios.

Gerard Willems has been awarded a Centenary Medal for Services to Music. He lives in Sydney and isAssociate Professor in the Keyboard Unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

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Stuart & Sons PianosStuart & Sons pianos are designed and handcrafted in Australia, under the supervision of master pianomaker and founder Wayne Stuart OAM. For more than a decade these grand pianos have beenacclaimed around the world for their individual sound, extraordinary clarity of tone, sustain and dynamicrange. Stuart is recognised as a visionary in contemporary acoustic piano building. He studied his craftin Europe and Japan, and within his generation has been the principal trainer of piano technicians in theSouth Pacific region.

The piano’s unique voice emanates from Stuart’s core design principle of vertical string coupling. Thestrings are bent in a vertical, rather than a horizontal, plane to define their speaking lengths as theycross over the bridge. The reaction forces produced by the bending moment are contained withinStuart’s agraffe device and are not transferred to the soundboard in the usual way.

Stuart’s approach to string vibration theory reduces internal damping and variable tuning characteristicsassociated with traditional piano sound. The resultant sustained, clear and dynamic sound, rich inaudible harmonics, is sympathetic to the entire piano repertoire. This new sound aesthetic challengesestablished dogmas in piano sound fashion and politics.

The concert grand used for this recording is the first 2.9m Stuart & Sons piano with 102 keys. True toform, Stuart has stood beyond the pack by building a range of 2.2m and 2.9m grand pianos from C16Hzto f555567.6517Hz: ‘After having these 102 keys around, I feel so restricted when sitting at a truncated88-key piano, and as others are exposed to this new freedom, they chorus their approval!’

Stuart believes that for the piano to remain relevant and a vital force in music making, it must continueto evolve. Stagnation, put simply, is a death knell.

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Executive Producers Martin Buzacott, Robert Patterson and Brendan Ward

Recording Producer, Engineer, Editing and Mastering Virginia Read

Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb

Publications Editor Natalie Shea

Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd

Photography Gerrit Fokkema Photography Pty Ltd

Hair and Make-up Garry Siutz

Piano Technician Vahé Sarmazian

Recorded 8-10 and 12 February 2010 in the Eugene Goossens

Hall of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ultimo Centre.

ABC Classics thanks Brad Jennings, Gary Martin, Andrew Ford, Eva Frey,

Paolo Febbo, Nicole Roberts, Neil McIntosh, Lorraine Verheyen,

Alexandra Alewood, Claudia Crosariol, Laura Bell and Katherine Kemp.

� 2010 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. � 2010 Australian BroadcastingCorporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, underexclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Anycopying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this recordwithout the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited.

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