The Variations on God Save the King and on Rule Britannia are less substantial. These were written in 1803 and offered to Breitkopf und Härtel and, by Ferdinand Ries, to Simrock. They were published the following year by the Kunst- und Industrie Comptoir. Apparent reference to these variations is made in a letter written by Beethoven, in French, to an unknown correspondent, thought to be either Pleyel in Paris or George Thomson in Edinburgh, publishers with whom he had business. Je vous envoie ci-joint, he writes, des variations sur 2 thèmes anglais qui sont bien faciles et qui à ce que j'espère auront un bons succès (I send you herewith some variations on two English themes that are very easy and which, as I hope, will have good success). The intention of providing something suitable for the amateur market is clear. In 1803, the year of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, there was an uneasy lull in hostilities between Britain and France, after earlier enforced Austrian agreement with Napoleon. It was in the following near that the First Consul had himself crowned Emperor, to Beethoven's dismay. Soon hostilities were to be resumed with a coalition of countries ranged against the new Emperor, whose forces were to occupy Vienna.

Beethoven's variations on Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia, from the latter's masque Alfred of 1740, open with a straightforward statement of the theme. The first variation, Tempo moderato, is a world away, in its exploration of wider ranges of the keyboard, leading to a version of gentle syncopation, against a left-hand accompaniment. The third variation calls for greater agility in its bravura display, while the fourth makes an obligatory and dramatic excursion into the minor. The set ends with an Allegro that restores the melody in clearer form, its headlong course briefly interrupted by hints of the minor key, before its rapid final section and well defined ending.

Writer: Anonymous