Beethoven: recently discovered Bagatelle sketch with variations fr. G.Prengel

[gprengel]

Recently a short sketch for a Bagatelle from 1826 was identified among Beethoven's sketches. On this beautiful melancholic piece which is the last melody Beethoven wrote for piano (!!) I enlarged a bit the second theme and wrote 7 variations for piano elaborating the melody itself as also the bass line: Theme Allegretto - Allegretto - Moderato - Allegro - Allegro agitato - Canzonetta cantabile - Lento - Allegro ma non troppo (Fugato).

www.gerdprengel.de/var_bagatelle.pdf
www.gerdprengel.de/var_bagatelle.mp3

I would appreciate if you would give me your impressions regarding this work! Thank you!

Gerd

[furtwaengler]

Hello Mr. Prengel, welcome to Pianostreet. 

I think more people would see this and enjoy it if you uploaded it onto Pianostreet as an attachment. This can easily be done by clicking underneath the message window on "Additional Options..."

I'm listening now and think it to be a clever piece, and a nice way of exposing and exploiting this lovely Beethoven fragment. There was a blog about this which can still be found here:

https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/piano-news/beethovens-last-piano-piece-found-in-berlin-352/

There is something ghostly about this fragment, and I don't know if it's the music itself or the perception of its being the last bit of piano music Beethoven penned. Either way you handle the theme itself well, and the variations are in a proper spirit. I especially liked the 6th variation...it's got a hush about it, like being at the tomb of the composer.

Nice work! I hope some others latch onto it, and I hope you make yourself at home at Pianostreet. I'll look to explore some more of your music on your website soon.

Dave

[gprengel]

Thank you for your kind reply and the hint to upload my piece to this site.
That's what I try here ...
Yes, the 6th variation with its calm sadness also moves me very much.

Gerd

[gprengel]

and here the uploaded mp3 file ...