What Musical Variations Reveal About Creativity

During his performance of Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” at Carnegie Hall, the pianist Igor Levit made a repeated gesture — a brisk horizontal sweep of his hand above the keys — that read like a mental reset. The motion highlighted a central idea: variations are not mere ornament; they are a form of problem solving in which each new section asks the composer, performer and listener to approach the same material with a beginner’s mind.

Anthony Brandt, a composer and musicologist who studies music cognition, uses the “Diabelli” project as a case study in creativity. When the publisher Anton Diabelli invited 51 composers to write one variation on his waltz theme, most complied; Beethoven wrote 33.

That spread of responses, Brandt argues, functions like a creativity experiment: fifty minds took one route, and one mind produced a vast, divergent exploration. Brandt finds that Beethoven’s method contrasts with convention.

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