A Remarkable Beethoven Cautionary

[John Ruggero]

The circled B natural appears in Variation 5 of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. It looks like it may have been added later.

MS A.png (739.33 KiB) Viewed 80 times

MS B.png (735.78 KiB) Viewed 80 times

Beethoven’s copyist faithfully preserves the accidental in the copy sent to the publisher, Diabelli, but the editor/engraver of the first edition omits the accidental in the proof copy.

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Beethoven includes the accidental in his list of corrections for the first edition:

Beethoven's correction.png (78.76 KiB) Viewed 80 times

The correction never makes it into the first edition. Instead a natural is placed two measures earlier where the B occurs in the lower register, as if correcting Beethoven’s placement.

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So why is Beethoven so intent on adding this apparently unnecessary accidental on the second B natural, and so unconcerned about the first?

Perhaps this could tell us something about Beethoven’s thinking, and about what has been called his “orchestral” approach to keyboard writing. As the reduction shows, the second inversion V chord resolves once in the “string” section and once (chromatically altered) in the winds before moving back to the second inversion chord. This is shown by the arrows in the example below. Since he is not thinking measure by measure like the editor/engraver but long term, for him the first B needs no accidental, just as one would not be needed for the string parts. However, the winds need their B natural to cancel the previous B flat.

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[David Ward]

This makes sense.

I see the 2019 Bärenreiter edition has both naturals. On the other hand the Augener edition (edited by Adam Carse) doesn't show the ‘woodwind’ natural. I can't find a date on the Augener, but I think it's from the 1930s or 40s.

[John Ruggero]

Thank you, David. All the editions I have access to, including the Wiener Urtext, which is often more faithful to the original than many other editions, follow Diabelli rather than Beethoven and place the natural on the first B.