Editing Diabelli Variations (section)

===Variation 32: ''Fuga: Allegro''===
{{Listen|image=none|type=music|filename=Beethoven - Diabelli Variations - 32.ogg|title=Variation 32|help=no}}
While in traditional variation sets a fugue was often used to conclude the work, Beethoven uses his fugue to reach a grand climax, then follows it with a final, quiet minuet. The fugue of Variation 32 is set apart by its foreign key, E{{music|flat}}&nbsp;major: it is the only variation where C is not the tonic. Structurally, the piece abandons Diabelli's two-part original. Melodically, it is based on Diabelli's falling fourth, used in many of the preceding variations, as well as, most strikingly, on the least inspired, least promising part of Diabelli's theme, the note repeated ten times. The bass in the opening bars takes Diabelli's rising figure and presents it in descending sequence. Out of these flimsy materials, Beethoven builds his powerful triple fugue.

The themes are presented in a variety of harmonies, contexts, lights and shades, and by using the traditional fugal techniques of [[Melodic inversion|inversion]] and [[stretto]]. About two thirds through, a fortissimo climax is reached and, following a pause, there begins a contrasting pianissimo section with a constantly hurrying figure serving as the third fugal [[Subject (music)|subject]]. Eventually, the original two themes of the fugue burst out loudly again and the work races impetuously toward its final climax, a crashing chord and a grand sweep of arpeggios twice down and up the entire keyboard.

The transition to the sublime minuet that forms the final variation is a series of quiet, greatly prolonged chords that achieve an extraordinary effect. In Solomon's words, "The thirty-third variation is introduced by a Poco adagio that breaks the fugue's agitated momentum and finally takes us to the brink of utter motionlessness, providing a curtain to separate the fugue from the minuet."<ref name="Solomon26">{{Harvnb|Solomon|2004|p=26}}</ref> In describing the ending, commentators are often driven to superlatives. Gerald Abraham calls it "one of the strangest passages Beethoven ever wrote".<ref>Abraham, Gerald, ''The Age of Beethoven'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, {{ISBN|0-19-316308-X}}, {{ISBN|9780193163089}}, 1982, p. 353.</ref> Kinderman describes the transition as "one of the most magical moments in the work":

{{quote|Beethoven emphasizes the [[Diminished seventh chord|diminished-seventh chord]] by a kind of arpeggiated [[cadenza]] spanning four and then five octaves. When the music comes to rest on this dissonant sonority, it is clear that we have reached the turning point, and are poised at a moment of great musical import. What accounts for the power of the following transition, which has so impressed musicians and critics? (Tovey called it 'one of the most appallingly impressive passages ever written.') One reason is surely the sheer temporal weight of the thirty-two variations that precede it, lasting three-quarters of an hour in performance. At this moment there is finally a halt to the seemingly endless continuity of variations in an unprecedented gesture. But this still fails to explain the uncanny force of the chord progression modulating from E{{music|flat}}&nbsp;major to the tonic C&nbsp;major of the Finale ..."}}

Tovey's description of this dramatic moment is:

{{quote|The storm of sound melts away, and, through one of the most ethereal and—I am amply justified in saying—appallingly impressive passages ever written, we pass quietly to the last variation<ref name="Tovey, Donald Francis p. 133">{{Harvnb|Tovey|1944|p=133}}</ref>}}

Technically, von Bülow admires in the closing four bars "the principle of modulation chiefly developed in the master's last creative period ... the successive step-wise progression of the several parts while employing enharmonic modulation as a bridge to connect even the remotest tonalities."

Brendel's title for this variation is ''To Handel''.

::[[File:Diabelli Var32 full.jpg]]