Abstract:
During 1824, composer and music publisher Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) published a
collection of piano compositions in two volumes, entitled the Vaterländischer
Künstlerverein (Patriotic Artists’ Association). He invited 51 of Vienna’s most
prominent musical personalities (among them an 11-year-old Franz Liszt, Franz
Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven) active during the early nineteenth century to
each contribute a variation on a waltz theme written by himself. The first volume
(Part I) of the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein was at first published in 1823 and
contains the 33 Veränderungen über einen Walzer von Diabelli op.120 by Ludwig
van Beethoven (1770-1827) which has subsequently become known simply as the
Diabelli Variations. To some, it is one of the most profound sets of variations ever
composed (Tovey 1944: 124). Because of the fame of the first volume, the second
volume has fallen into relative obscurity – it has become all but forgotten by most
musicologists and pianists alike. This second volume (Part II) contains an additional
50 variations by (the remaining) 50 composers invited by Diabelli to partake in this
mammoth project. French (2004: 220) and Roennfeldt (2009: 2) agree that this set of
variations can provide invaluable insight into Viennese musical life ca. 1820. This set
of variations, comprising a catalogue of the influential musical figures of the time,
proved a worthwhile subject of investigation for a holistic perspective on musical life
in Vienna between the deaths of Mozart (1791) and Beethoven (1827).
The socio-political conditions in Vienna in the early nineteenth century proved an
extremely interesting time. After the upheavals of 1789 - 1815, caused by the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna, (between November
1814 and June 1815), provided a means to relative peace during the subsequent
century. The democratising ideologies of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars had affected the whole of Europe, sparking widespread emancipation of the
middle class and a re-evaluation of the nobility’s power. Vienna found itself in a
period of apparent peace, with an appreciation for moral responsibility, patriotism,
family and nature; this period would retrospectively be called the Biedermeier Period
(1815-1830). The art of music was liberated to become an accessible, cultural
pastime, not only for the nobility and for aristocratic peoples, but also for the average
middle class citizen. The popular music genre became eminent with, as one of its
major exponents, the waltz.
