VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY HAYDN, FOR TWO PIANOS, OP. 56B

Johannes Brahms
(b. Hamburg, Germany, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, Austria, April 3, 1897)

Composed 1873; 18 minutes

In 1870, Ferdinand Pohl, librarian to the Vienna Philharmonic Society, showed his friend Brahms a set of six Feld-Partitas for eight wind instruments, believing them to be by Haydn. The second movement of the B-flat Partita particularly caught Brahms’s eye. Called Chorale St. Antoni in the manuscript, Brahms immediately saw potential in its irregular, yet musically logical structure. The theme was believed to be a traditional Austrian pilgrim song, which added a romantic touch to the discovery. (It remains without attribution today.) In his mind, Brahms began to formulate a set of variations on the chorale that could be viewed as a tribute to Haydn, and to the classical era in general. 

In August 1873, he played over the completed two-piano score with Clara Schumann and sent the manuscript off to his publisher. It appeared in print almost simultaneously with the première of its orchestral version, November 1, 1873. Brahms wanted the two-piano version to be recognized as an independent work, allowing us to appreciate the symphonic scale of the undertaking, while bringing clarity to its structural foundation. Energetic and forward driving, the first three variations function like an opening movement. Then comes a more reflective Andante, in the minor key. Variations 5 to 8 function as a scherzo, with hunting calls and galloping rhythms in No. 6, and a graceful, trio-like Siciliano in No. 7. Brahms concludes his virtuoso transformation of the original ‘Haydn’ theme in a passacaglia, with 17 repetitions of its solemn, five-bar theme.