basilh
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 31 Dec 2007 9:19 pm |
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If J.P.Winkler is Count Anton Diabelli, who is Beethoven?
This is a little puzzle question for people who like exploring parallels.
In 1819 Anton Diabelli, a publisher and music teacher, sent out a little waltz tune to every composer and virtuoso he thought worthy, inviting them to write one variation which would be published in a collection he was going to call Der Vaterländische Künstlerverein ("The Patriotic Culture Club"). Eventually he collected 52 responses and published them in 1824, excluding those by Beethoven.
Beethoven had started by pushing the little tune aside with contempt. Then he took it out again, and in 1822 and 1823 put together the "33 variations on a waltz by Diabelli" that is one of the great masterpieces of the piano repertoire. It is perhaps the funniest piece of music ever written, demolishing Diabelli with glorious exaggeration.
So, what you have to do is to find somebody who received an invitation from J.P.Winkler to write something, and who, like Beethoven, returned far more than he was asked for and, in the process, created a comic masterpiece. J.P.Winkler was an American journalist, and the person he wrote to was not a musician. |
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