Beethoven: Variations on Folk Songs (2015)

Beethoven's variations on folk songs have been neglected for a variety of reasons, not the least being the discomfort of status-invested musicologists with popular material. They date from the last part of his career, which ought to make them interesting on the face of it, and he didn't really need the money by that time. Furthermore, Beethoven argued with the publisher of some of them (including the two sets here), trying to maintain what he wrote against demands for greater simplicity, and he kept writing folk song ... Read More

Beethoven's variations on folk songs have been neglected for a variety of reasons, not the least being the discomfort of status-invested musicologists with popular material. They date from the last part of his career, which ought to make them interesting on the face of it, and he didn't really need the money by that time. Furthermore, Beethoven argued with the publisher of some of them (including the two sets here), trying to maintain what he wrote against demands for greater simplicity, and he kept writing folk song settings even after there was no immediate commercial motivation. At any rate, the Op. 105 and Op. 107 sets, dating from around 1819, are especially interesting, for each folk song is given its own little set of variations. Beethoven's orientation toward simple folk-like melodies in his late style, even as he made discoveries of earthshaking originality and complexity, has often been noted, and it seems reasonable to suppose that he derived that orientation from working on projects like... Read Less