Diabelli’s Vaterländischer Künstlerverein Part II as a representation of the development of the waltz within the socio-political context of Vienna ca. 1820

Abstract

During 1824, composer and music publisher Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) published a collection of piano compositions in two volumes, entitled the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein (Patriotic Artists’ Association). He invited 51 of Vienna’s most prominent musical personalities (among them an 11-year-old Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven) active during the early nineteenth century to each contribute a variation on a waltz theme written by himself. The first volume (Part I) of the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein was at first published in 1823 and contains the 33 Veränderungen über einen Walzer von Diabelli op.120 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) which has subsequently become known simply as the Diabelli Variations. To some, it is one of the most profound sets of variations ever composed (Tovey 1944: 124). Because of the fame of the first volume, the second volume has fallen into relative obscurity – it has become all but forgotten by most musicologists and pianists alike. This second volume (Part II) contains an additional 50 variations by (the remaining) 50 composers invited by Diabelli to partake in this mammoth project. French (2004: 220) and Roennfeldt (2009: 2) agree that this set of variations can provide invaluable insight into Viennese musical life ca. 1820. This set of variations, comprising a catalogue of the influential musical figures of the time, proved a worthwhile subject of investigation for a holistic perspective on musical life in Vienna between the deaths of Mozart (1791) and Beethoven (1827). The socio-political conditions in Vienna in the early nineteenth century proved an extremely interesting time. After the upheavals of 1789 - 1815, caused by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna, (between November 1814 and June 1815), provided a means to relative peace during the subsequent century. The democratising ideologies of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had affected the whole of Europe, sparking widespread emancipation of the middle class and a re-evaluation of the nobility’s power. Vienna found itself in a period of apparent peace, with an appreciation for moral responsibility, patriotism, family and nature; this period would retrospectively be called the Biedermeier Period (1815-1830). The art of music was liberated to become an accessible, cultural pastime, not only for the nobility and for aristocratic peoples, but also for the average middle class citizen. The popular music genre became eminent with, as one of its major exponents, the waltz.