An Admired Air by Mozart with Variations for Pianoforte by Lewis van Beethoven – circa 1830/1845? Entered at Stationers’ Hall – Edinburgh, printed by Muir Wood & Co., 13 Leith Street. Price: 2 shillings.

(This is the final movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K. 581, with its original variations arranged for solo piano.)

As for the description of the work, we leave the floor to pianist Francesco Gussago, who defines it with great precision:

“This work, published in London in 1830 under Beethoven’s name, exists only in this edition and only nine known copies. The theme is taken from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K. 581. It is a simple and spirited theme (as was often Mozart’s nature); the indication ‘Allegretto’ given by Mozart already suggests the character of this piece and its first variations. The theme-and-variations form is emblematic of how a theme of just a few notes can gradually take on different—even contrasting—characters, transforming to the point of becoming almost unrecognizable.

• The first variation maintains the same simple and sweet character of the theme, though rendered slightly more flowing (the music begins to move…).
• The second variation already presents very different traits from what we heard at the beginning: over a bed of repeated notes, the right hand resumes the initial theme but transformed (though it still retains the ‘Allegretto’ character).
• The third variation darkens the atmosphere. It feels like the arrival of a storm: the theme becomes sad, melancholic, foreshadowing what comes next—a tempest of broken octaves in the right hand that renders the theme highly dramatic and tragic (we are now in a completely different dimension).
• Over this agitated situation, the fourth variation immediately emerges, technically very difficult: it consists of a series of arabesques above the theme, which remains in the background (heard in the left hand), ending with a long descending arpeggio that calms all this agitation.
• The drama opens to light: the fifth variation. The indication ‘Adagio’ given by Mozart is emblematic. It is an idyllic, childlike, very sweet vignette. One seems to glimpse Mozart’s childlike soul in this gently caressing, intimate, almost moving melody. By now, the original theme is unrecognizable. The sweetness of this variation also has a melancholic nuance (simplicity, sweetness, and melancholy: the typical traits of Mozart’s music).
• The journey concludes with the cheerful and spirited sixth variation. It reconnects with the character of the initial theme, making it more lively through a series of fast and brilliant cascades of sound. This whole boisterous scene ends with a fade-out in pianissimo, as if the curtain falls having said everything.”

— Francesco Gussago