DIABELLI: Complete Variations on a Waltz by 51 Composers [CD de audio] Pier Paolo Vincenzi and Varios

Has ever a simple little melody been honored with such compositional virtuosity as the little waltz that the then 39-year-old editor and impresario, Anton Diabelli, published and invited all the notable composers of the time to embroider and embellish with their own mastery? ? What now seems surprising is how many chose to respond to Diabelli's offer-cum-publicity-trick, 51 in total, not only Beethoven but also the 11-year-old Liszt, perhaps already knowing how the nascent music industry worked and many names who would now be considered alsorans in the history of music: Mozart's son, Franz Xaver; Schubert and Bruckner counterpoint teacher Simon Sechter; Friedrich Dionysus Weber, no relation to Carl Maria; and these are some of the most well-known names on their own. Here is a rare opportunity to hear their efforts in the context of the monumental work, but for which they would probably have been completely forgotten, the 33 variations later worked out by Beethoven, who apparently refused to contribute to the picnic-basket of the original project, but he determined to make his own magnum opus from the melody, which scholars have declared to be his most adventurous work in terms of harmonic innovation (which says something). Pier Paolo Vincenzi has done his own academic research for this new record, not only relying on the standard edition of the 51 compiled variations, but also on a rarer edition from 1983 that offers two more variations than are usually found. Vincenzi's discography in Brilliant Classics already includes a valuable set of Wagner's complete piano music.