33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli

Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev returns to the GES-2 Playhouse with Ludwig van Beethoven’s legendary cycle.

Programme

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, 1823

Ludwig van Beethoven completed his 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli in 1823, four years after the Viennese music publisher had invited him and other Austrian composers to write variations on a waltz of his own composition. What Beethoven created is perhaps the most ambitious and sophisticated cycle of variations in the history of music, a work that continues to amaze listeners by the diversity and universality of its musical language.

Performed by

Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev piano

Illustration: Evgenia Tut

A whole encyclopaedia of styles, genres, and artistic strategies emerges from Diabelli’s emphatically unpretentious waltz theme. We hear devices taken from Bach, Handel, and Mozart (including a quote from Don Giovanni), the polyphony of old masters, and anticipations of Italian bel canto and Chopin’s romantic pianism. The Variations gaze intently into the future of music, pushing the boundaries of harmony to the limits, challenging familiar compositional structures, and anticipating the discoveries of later eras (the true radicalism of the Variations would only be appreciated in the twentieth century). In his final work for solo piano and four years before his death, Beethoven reaps a harvest from years of experimentation with the expressive possibilities of the instrument.

Never performed during the composer’s lifetime (Beethoven’s contemporaries judged the work to be unplayable), the 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli is a rarity on the concert platform even today and the few performers who tackle this grandiose cycle count it an important milestone in their artistic journey. Such will be the case for Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev, who will perform the Variations for the first time in his career at GES-2 House of Culture.

Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev (b. 1993, Moscow) studied at the Central Music School with Alexander Mndoyants and at the Moscow Conservatory with Sergei Dorensky. He won five international youth contests, including the New Names competition in Moscow, before taking first prize, aged 19, at the Scriabin International Piano Competition. Since then he has been a prize-winner at competitions in Cleveland (2013), Bergen (2014), and Sydney (2016). These successes led to recording contracts with Decca Classics and Universal Music. In 2017, Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev was awarded the silver prize of the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. In June 2022, he took the silver medal at the Rachmaninoff Competition for Pianists, Composers, and Conductors in Moscow. He has performed at the Carnegie Hall in New York, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and other prominent venues in Europe, America, and Asia.