Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827
Variations on Müller's song "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu", Op. 121a, c.1803

The variations are based on the aria "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu" ("I am the tailor Cockatoo") from Wenzel Müller's Viennese Singspiel "The Sisters of Prague" first staged around 1794, most likely Müller's best known opera. A simple tune, really more of a simple chord progression with vast possibilities for play, becomes superior musical entertainment in the hands of Beethoven who wrote the Diabelli Variations and the Eroica finale around the same time. Every permutation of the piano trio has its chance to contribute to a sequence of variations with great variety and a dazzling finish. Just for a little something extra, Beethoven withholds the initial Kakadu theme by starting with a dramatically ominous introduction that lasts as long as one-third of the performance practically making this a twomovement epic miniature, pure Beethoven from scowl to smile to radiant effulgence. Someone once called this piece "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
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