Exploring the Details: "On Friday January 15, 2010, two officers from the Justice Department . . . "

Have you noticed how many of my blog posts begin with that theme?

Well, I'm no Beethoven, but I am a great admirer of a piano piece by Beethoven commonly known as the Diabelli Variations. The piece, which takes about an hour to perform, comprises a collection of 33 variations that Beethoven wrote on a waltz theme by Anton Diabelli.

I sent a DVD of the piece to Bob Strauss. Perhaps I shouldn't admit to that. The last time I admitted sending anything to a partner at a law firm, two officers from the Justice Department showed up at my door, based on a suspicion that I was stalking the partner's spouse, who happens to be a federal official. I might add: that is the only communication of any kind that I have ever had with Bob Strauss. And, no, I am not stalking Bob Strauss.



The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120 (the Diabelli Variations) is considered one of the supreme compositions for the piano; it often shares the highest honours with Bach's Goldberg Variations. The distinguished music writer Donald Francis Tovey has called it "the greatest set of variations ever written." Pianist Alfred Brendel has described it as simply "the greatest of all piano works." It also comprises, in the words of Hans von Bülow, "a microcosm of Beethoven's art." Or, as Martin Cooper writes in Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817 - 1827, "The variety of treatment is almost without parallel, so that the work represents a book of advanced studies in Beethoven's manner of expression and his use of the keyboard, as well as a monumental work in its own right."



Beethoven's approach to the theme is to take some of its smallest elements -- the opening turn, the descending fourth and fifth, the repeated notes -- and build upon them pieces of great imagination, power and subtlety. Alfred Brendel wrote, "The theme has ceased to reign over its unruly offspring. Rather, the variations decide what the theme may have to offer them. Instead of being confirmed, adorned and glorified, it is improved, parodied, ridiculed, disclaimed, transfigured, mourned, stamped out and finally uplifted."

In some sense one could say the same thing about my blog posts regarding my interview with the two officers from the Justice Department; for me the interview is an occasion for improvement, parody, ridicule, disclaimer, transfiguration, mourning, stamping out and finally redemption. I tend not to confirm, adorn, or glorify The Powers that Be.