Beethoven's markings indicate that he wished variations 2–4 to be played to the same basic (ternary) pulse as the theme, first variation and subsequent sections (that is, each of the three intra-bar groupings move at the same speed regardless of time signature; Beethoven uses the direction ""L'istesso tempo"" at each change of time signature). The simplified time signatures ( for and for ; both implying unmarked triplets) support this. However, in performance, the theme and first variation sound much slower, with wide spaces between the chords, and the second variation (and much more so, the third variation) faster, because of the shorter note values that create a doubling (and redoubling) of the effective compound time groupings. The third variation has a powerful, stomping, dance-like character with falling swung sixty-fourth notes, and heavy syncopation. Mitsuko Uchida has remarked that this variation, to a modern ear, has a striking resemblance to cheerful boogie-woogie, and the closeness of it to jazz and ragtime, which were still over 70 years into the future at the time, has often been pointed out. Jeremy Denk, for example, describes the second movement using terms like "proto-jazz" and "boogie-woogie". Conversely, András Schiff denounces that hypothesis, maintaining that it has nothing to do with jazz or anything of the sort. From the fourth variation onwards the time signature returns to the original but divided into constant triplet thirty-second notes, effectively creating a doubly compound meter (equivalent to ).