The Beethoven Diabelli Variations performed by Juan Fernando Moreno Gistaín is a superb calling card of one of the most talented spanish pianists.
Radio Clasica

A career to follow closely.
Ritmo Magazine


Juan Fernando Moreno turns every concert into an emotional experience.
El Periodico

L. V. BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120

JUAN FERNANDO MORENO GISTAIN, PIANO

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L. v. Beethoven.
The joy of creating.

The composer and publisher Anton Diabelli had a marketing idea: to invite the fifty most important composers living in Austria to write a variation on a waltz he had written. When Diabelli offer this project to Beethoven, he refuses. Probably Beethoven did not like with the project, and we know that what really disliked him was the waltz by Diabelli, it was in his opinion a piece too simple and basic. But something happened in the following months and Beethoven warned that such a basic structure allowed him to deploy all their imagination, so he did not compose a variation, but one variation after another in a process that took him three years to complete thirty-three variations. This is a very special moment in the life of Beethoven, because these were his last years of creative life, he worked simultaneously in two giant works as the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. At this time Beethoven is almost completly deaf, so he has to recreate everything in his imagination. Beethoven created a small universe for each of these variations and he uses a wide variety of resources, but he also connects them in a astonishing way to tell a story. In fact, the Diabelli Variations tell us a story with music that goes beyond music: It's a story about the joy of creating,it´s a story on the inexhaustible imagination of human beings and especially on the power of his will. Juan Fernando Moreno has prepared its interpretation from the analysis of the pages handwritten by Beethoven and the early editions of the work. He has also experienced the preferred piano by Beethoven, this research has took him to Musikinstrumentum-Museum in Berlin and the Beethoven Center in San Jose University (USA).