By the time Beethoven was thirty years old he was already an accomplishedcomposer. By then he had completed, among other things: a symphony, twopiano concertos, two cello sonatas, four piano trios, three violin sonatas,and no fewer than a dozen piano sonatas. Most of these are major works,obviously revealing, along with Beethoven’s characteristic boldnessof invention and unprecedented power of expression, a thorough—andthoroughly original—mastery of the well-established formal and tonalprinciples governing large-scale instrumental form.

What is striking about this tabulation is the preponderance of compositionsfor or with the piano. This is not at all surprising, of course, since by1800 Beethoven was also one of the most successful pianists of his time.Moreover, he had been performing, and composing, piano music for more thanhalf his life—for almost twenty of his thirty years, in fact, if oneis willing to count the juvenilia produced by the eleven-year-old in theyear 1782. His first extraordinary piano composition, however, was writtenat about the age of twenty. It confirms that by 1790, i.e., two years beforehe had left Bonn for Vienna in order to begin the “serious”study of composition with Joseph Haydn, Beethoven had completely masteredthe art of writing effectively and idiomatically for the keyboard.

The “Righini” Variations, WoO 65

The composition is the set of Twenty-Four Variations on the Arietta“Venni amore” by Vicenzo Righini, WoO 65. The variationsdisplay a thoroughgoing familiarity with and command of the most brilliantkeyboard virtuosity, featuring such sensational difficulties as parallellegato chromatic thirds for both hands and rapid octave passages (seeexample 7.1).

It is well known that Muzio Clementi and others had been writing dazzlingpassagework and other feats of keyboard legerdemain by the early 1780s.Evidence is abundant that Beethoven was familiar with, and influenced bythem. But it is important to realize that such passagework is really not anymore specifically idiomatic for the piano than other rapid scales andarpeggios. They could just as well, and just as effectively, have beenplayed on the harpsichord. In fact, until about 1784, Clementi, thecelebrated “father of the pianoforte,” is known to have playedhis solo recitals exclusively on the harpsichord.