Beethoven, Six Variations for piano on a theme by Paisiello

 
The Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello was primarily a composer of operas who enjoyed no small amount of success in his long life. His setting of Beaumarchais's comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia ovvero La precauzione inutile toured Europe with overwhelming success in the 1780s. Therefore, when Rossini "remusicalised" the libretto in 1816 under "another" name: Almaviva o sia L' inutile precauzione, Paisello followers hit the roof, although he was by no means the first to set the French comedy to music.

The successful duet
His output in the genre totals 94 works, all of which abound in beautiful, simple melodies. His greatest "hit", to this day, is the duet from the second act of La Molinara, from 1788, known as "Nel cor piu non mi sento", its first verse which, very loosely, can be translated as "My heart no longer feels". Dozens of composers have made use of the theme: Paganini, Sor, Giuliani, Hummel, and many others arranged it for various instruments, including the double bass.

Variations on request

Giovanni Paisiello (1740 - 1816)

But it was Beethoven who took the cake. In his first years in Vienna, teaching aristocratic girls and making contacts in musical circles to make himself known (he was 25 years old), the maestro was not in a position to produce particularly important works. So it happened that on one such evening, the lady of the house suggested that he should write some variations on melodies from Paisiello's recently premiered work. It is said that Beethoven would have taken note and completed the request a couple of days later in the course of a single evening.

Six variations for piano on Nel cor piu non mi sento
Full of charm rather than depth, and with no major technical demands (they suited his pupils like a glove), the variations in G major are catalogued as WoO 70 (WoO: Works without opus number) and were composed in 1795. From then until today, the little jewel of no more than six minutes in length is the most serious incursion into Beethoven's work of any novice pianist, after, of course, the celebrated bagatelle Für Elise.

The original theme

But before listening to the set of piano variations, we thought it was important to present Paisiello's original theme. It is sung by Pavarotti.

Theme and Variations performed by the Georgian pianist Ketevan Sepashvili:

00 Theme

01:16 Variation 1

01:52 Variation 2

02:31 Variation 3

03:12 Variation 4 (the " prescribed " variation in a minor key)

04:24 Variation 5

05:10 Variation 6 (a little faster than desirable, in our humble opinion)