15 Variations and Fugue in E flat major (Eroica Variations) Op. 35 (Beethoven).

This is the best of Beethoven's variations, and possibly the most inventive of every other composer's works in this genre, as far as I am concerned.
They were written in 1802 and published the following year in Leipzig.
Beethoven stressed to his publishers, Breitkopf and Hartel, the originality of the two sets of variations, Opus 34 and Opus 35, the first not least in its varieties of key for each variation.
This composition might have been better known as the Prometheus Variations, had the composer's intentions been followed. They are commonly referred to as the Eroica Variations because a different set of variations on the same theme were used as the finale of his Eroica Symphony, No.3, composed the following year.
The theme was a favourite of Beethoven: he had used it in the finale of the ballet music he composed for The Creatures of Prometheus (1801), as well as for the seventh of his 12 Contredanses, WoO 14 (1800-02), before being the subject of the variations of this work and of the later symphony.
The work was finally dedicated to Mozart's former pupil, Count Moritz Lichnowsky, brother of Beethoven's generous patron Prince Karl Lichnowsky, after an originally intended dedication to the Abbé Stadler.
The speed indication is Allegretto vivace, but various variations require different tempi dependent on mood and character.
(Because audiences of Beethoven's day were inattentive, he begins the work with a loud chord to announce that the music has begun! Audiences of today are often much the same as then!! However, the theme for the first few variations does not seem to be of great interest: this is an example of Beethoven's humour because the real theme comes much later, since the opening variations are based upon the bass line only! Critics of the day were critical of Beethoven's tonic-and-dominant way of composing: therefore. Beethoven forces the dominant chord down the throats of those critics by making the dominant chord VERY loud in many of the variations!)
GlynGlynn, alias GB, realiser.
Please feel free to leave any comments, be they good, bad, or indifferent as to whether the piece, or the performance, moved you in any way whatsoever!
(Since music is an aural art, and not a visual one, it is best to listen to these pieces, and other artists performances, with eyes closed, so as to be able to listen intently as to how the music is portrayed).