Beethoven - Diabelli Variations
Paul Lewis
Harmonia Mundi HMC902071

Release date May 2011

I have always found Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations a difficult work to appreciate. However, having listened for the first time to Paul Lewis’s new recording (and immediately played it twice more in quick succession out of sheer joy), I feel duty bound to broadcast news of my discovery: this is wonderful music, brought to life by Lewis in a remarkable way! Lewis’s handling of the theme is in itself unusual – he imbues it with a certain urgency, moving seamlessly into the first variation which, while a truly majestic march as marked by the composer, again has the feel of striding onwards. Lewis’s tempi throughout are shrewdly judged – I particularly enjoyed the progression from the Poco allegro of Variation 2 to the Allegro vivace of Variation 5, and the breath-taking Presto of Variation 10. His variety of touch is astonishing, evidenced by his varying degrees of staccato, brilliant trills, bell-like arpeggios and rippling runs. The moments of repose are sweet, the delicacy of the fugue in Variation 24 especially beautiful. His grading of dynamics is faultless, and the effect of the final variation is of a calm new dawn after a night of storm. For the first time I found myself interested in this work – and it is interesting, with its homages to Mozart, Bach and Cramer and allusions to other piano works by Beethoven, helpfully outlined in Jean-Paul Montagnier’s easily digested booklet essay. It is also a towering monument to Beethoven’s creative abilities: Diabelli himself described it as ‘worthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the old Classics’, and as Montagnier points out, after Beethoven only Brahms was to succeed in establishing himself as a great master of the ‘theme and variations’ genre. I listened again to Brendel’s recording of this work, and was again left unmoved; it’s a little too four-square at times for my taste, I found his piano over-resonant, and his performance didn’t possess the impetus and sense of organic wholeness that Lewis brings to this music. If your CD collection lacks a Diabelli Variations, I urge you to try this one!

Reviewed by Anne McAlister