Seven Variations on ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen’

Variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” (1801)

Beethoven wrote three sets of variations for cello and piano, two of them based on themes from from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Of those two, written in 1796 and 1801 respectively, the variations on Pamina and Papageno’s duet “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen” are a cut above the earlier ones on Papageno’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen.” While they might not be as amusing, they are more interestingly organised in a construction which presents the last four variations in a symmetry so cohesive as to elevate the whole work above the bit-by-bit progression of most sets of variations of the time