6 Bagatelles

Beethoven’s final piano work wasn’t a mighty sonata or a monumental set of variations but a volume of six bagatelles. He had composed such “trifles”—Kleinigkeiten was his term for them—throughout his career, occasionally gathering them into sets for publication. His last book of bagatelles was slightly different in that all the music was specially composed during 1824, a year after the Diabelli Variations had appeared. As in his previous sets, however, continuity arises from contrast within and between pieces, each one as deftly characterised as any of his more serious works. In fact, for all their apparent simplicity, they are as minutely considered and as sublime as any of his visionary late music. The lyrical first and hymnlike third Bagatelles breathe the same air as the “Arietta” of the final sonata and flank the driving toccata of the second. The fourth’s assertive “Presto” alternates with music of numinous stillness, while the unassuming fifth leads via a whirlwind introduction to the closing barcarolle.