Frustrated at my inability to "get" this reknowned work by Beethoven, who
is definitely among my very favorite composers, I have been listening to it
over and over again.  And I think I am starting to crack through.  Instead
of listening all the way through, I play the Diabelli waltz theme and then
go to one (or a small group) of the variations and play them through a few
times.  (The car CD player is good for switching trackes this way.)

In addition to simply enjoying the music more, I find I am able to
pick out elements of the altered theme in many of the variations.  Is
there somewhere on the internet, or does someone have handy, a simple
explanaition of the compositional technique used in each variation? I'm
not as interested in the tempo indications, which are listed on the disc
anyway, as I am in the ways Beethoven manipulates the thematic material
and what I should be hearing in each variation.

I don't have the score, but I am familiar enough with music vocabulary to
follow what is going on.

I am listening to Barenboim on Erato.  Does anyone have favorite versions
of the work with notably different interpretations?

Ed