Editing Diabelli Variations (section)

===Variation 1: ''Alla marcia maestoso''===
{{Listen|image=none|type=music|filename=Beethoven - Diabelli Variations - 01-02.ogg|title=Variations 1 and 2|help=no}}
While Beethoven's first variation stays close to the melody of Diabelli's theme, there is nothing waltz-like about it. It is a strong, heavily accented march in {{music|time|4|4}} time, greatly differing from the character and {{music|time|3|4}} time of the theme. This sharp break from Diabelli announces that the series will not consist of mere decorative variations on a theme. The first variation, according to Tovey, gives "emphatic proof that this is to be a very grand and serious work", describing it as "entirely solemn and grand in style".<ref name="Tovey 1944 128">{{Harvnb|Tovey|1944|p=128}}</ref>

Kinderman, on the other hand, whose researches among the Beethoven sketchbooks discovered that Variation 1 was inserted late into the work, deems it a "structural variation", echoing Diabelli more clearly than the non-structural variations and, in this case, parodying the weaknesses of the theme. Its character is, for Kinderman, "pompous" and "mock-heroic".<ref>{{Harvnb|Kinderman|1987|p=73}}</ref> Alfred Brendel takes a view similar to Kinderman's, characterizing this variation as "serious but slightly lacking in brains".<ref name="Brendel, Alfred p.49">{{Harvnb|Brendel|1990|p=49}}</ref> The title he offers is ''March: gladiator, flexing his muscles''. Wilhelm von Lenz called it ''The Mastodon and the Theme—a fable.''<ref name="Brendel, Alfred p.50">{{Harvnb|Brendel|1990|p=50}}</ref>

::[[File:Diabelli Var01 full.jpg]]