Diabelli Variations [SEP] instrumentation
Diabelli Variations
The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli. It is often considered to be one of the greatest sets of variations for keyboard along with J. S. Bach's "Goldberg Variations".
The music writer Donald Tovey called it "the greatest set of variations ever written". The pianist Alfred Brendel has described it
are so similar as to seem to be mere variants of each other), but are, rather, stylistic parodies in the tradition of Beethoven’s "Diabelli Variations".
Historical source material.
Nearly all the musical material of "Terra Kytaorum"—hymn melodies, keys, instrumentation, the varied national styles, non-standard tuning, and percussion patterns—may be verified in encyclopaedia articles, specialist journals and monographs, doctoral dissertations, Chinese treatises and records from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Western travellers’