The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, is a work for solo piano written by Johannes Brahms in 1861. It consists of a set of twenty-five variations and a concluding fugue, all based on a theme from George Frideric Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B major, HWV 434. They are known as his Handel Variations.
The music writer Donald Tovey has ranked it among "the half-dozen greatest sets of variations ever written". Biographer Jan Swafford describes the Handel Variations as "perhaps the finest set of piano variations since Beethoven", adding, "Besides a masterful unfolding of ideas concluding with an exuberant fugue with a finish designed to bring down the house, the work is quintessentially Brahms in other ways: the filler of traditional forms with fresh energy and imagination; the historical eclectic able to start off with a gallant little tune of Handel's, Baroque ornaments and all, and integrate it seamlessly into his own voice, in a work of massive scope and dazzling variety."
The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Library of Congress.
Background
The Handel Variations were written in September 1861 after Brahms, aged 28, abandoned the work he had been doing as director of the Hamburg women's choir (Frauenchor) and moved out of his family's cramped and shabby apartments in Hamburg to his own apartment in the quiet suburb of Hamm, initiating a highly productive period that produced "a series of early masterworks". Written in a single stretch in September 1861, the work is dedicated to a "beloved friend", Clara Schumann, widow of Robert Schumann. It was presented to her on her 42nd birthday, September 13. At about the same time, his interest in, and mastery of, the piano also shows in his writing two important piano quartets, in G minor and A major. Barely two months later, in November 1861, he produced his second set of Schumann Variations, Op. 23, for piano four hands.
From his earliest years as a composer, the variation was a musical form of great interest to Brahms. Before the Handel Variations he had written a number of other sets of variations, as well as using variations in the slow movement of his Op. 1, the Piano Sonata in C major, and in other chamber works. In particular, between the time he wrote his previous Two Sets of Variations for piano, (No. 1, Eleven Variations on an Original Theme, in D major (1857) and No. 2, Fourteen Variations on a Hungarian Melody, in D major (1854)), Op. 21, and the Handel Variations, Op. 24, Brahms did a careful study of "more rigorous, complex and historical models, among others preludes, fugues, canons and the then obscure dance movements of the Baroque period. Two gigues and two sarabandes that Brahms wrote to develop his technique are extant today. The results of these historical studies are seen in his choice of Handel for the theme, as well as his use of Baroque forms, including the Siciliana dance form (Var. 19) from the French school of Couperin and, in general, the frequent use of contrapuntal techniques in many variations.
One aspect of his approach to variation writing is made explicit in a number of letters. "In a theme for a [set of] variations, it is almost only the bass that has any meaning for me. But this is sacred to me, it is the firm foundation on which I then build my stories. What I do with a melody is only playing around ... If I vary only the melody, then I cannot easily be more than clever or graceful, or, indeed, [if] full of feeling, deepen a pretty thought. On the given bass, I invent something actually new, I discover new melodies in it, I create." The role of the bass is critical.
<blockquote>Identifying the bass as the essence of the theme ... Brahms advocated using it to control the structure and character of individual variations and of the entire set. But by this he apparently did not mean retaining in the variations the bass line of the theme or even its harmonies ... To invent something actually new and to discover new melodies in the bass give the bass a role at once passive and active. While maintaining the structure of the theme—the passive bass, so to speak—Brahms may actively create melodies and figurative patterns (including melodies "discovered in" the bass), project different contrapuntal textures, and draw on an expanded harmonic vocabulary, sometimes interpreting the melody as the bass of the harmony or regarding major and minor or sharp and flat versions of the same passage as equally valid and available. The result is a great diversity of expression and character founded on a relatively strict conception of the "given" material.</blockquote>
Brahms also took into careful account the character of the theme, and its historical context. Unlike the great model of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, where the variations departed widely from the character of the theme, Brahms's variations expressed and developed the character of the theme. Because the theme for the Handel variations originated in the Baroque era, Brahms included forms such as a siciliana, a musette, a canon and a fugue.
Still not fully established in his career in 1861, Brahms had to struggle to get the work published. He wrote to Breitkopf & Härtel, "I am unwilling, at the first hurdle, to give up my desire to see this, my favourite work, published by you. If therefore, it is primarily the high fee that stops you taking it, I will be happy to let you have it for 12 Friedrichsdors or, if this still seems too high, 10 Friedrichsdors. I very much hope you will not think I plucked the initial fee arbitrarily out of the air. I consider this work to be much better than my earlier ones; I think it is also much better adapted to the demands of performance and will therefore be easier to market ..."
The theme of the Handel Variations is taken from an aria in the third movement of Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B Major, HWV 434 (Suites de pièces pour le clavecin, published by J. Walsh, London 1733 with five variations). Brahms himself owned a copy of the 1733 First Edition. The appeal of the aria for Brahms might have been its simplicity: its range is restricted to one octave; the harmony is plain, with every note taken from the B-flat major scale; it "made an admirably neutral starting-place". While Handel had written only five variations on his theme, Brahms, with the piano as his instrument rather than the more limited harpsichord, enlarged the scope of his opus to 25 variations ending with an extended fugue. Brahms's use of Handel exemplifies his love of the music of the past and his tendency to incorporate it and transform it in his own compositions.
Of the overall concept of the work, Malcolm MacDonald writes "Some of Brahms's models in this monumental work are easy enough to identify. In the scale and ambition of his conception both Bach's 'Goldberg' and Beethoven's 'Diabelli Variations' must have exercised a powerful if generalized influence; in specific features of form Beethoven's 'Eroica' Variations is a closer parallel. But the overall structure is original to Brahms." And MacDonald suggests what might have been a more contemporary source of inspiration, the Variations on a Theme of Handel, Op. 26, by Robert Volkmann. "Brahms might well have known that large and often admirable work, published as recently as 1856, which Volkmann based on the so-called 'Harmonious Blacksmith' theme from the Air with Variations in Handel's E major Harpsichord Suite."
Structure
In Music, Imagination, and Culture Nicholas Cook gives the following concise description:
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"The Handel Variations consist of a theme and twenty-five variations, each of equal length, plus a much longer fugue at the end which provides the climax of the movement in terms of duration, dynamics, and contrapuntal complexity. The individual variations are grouped in such a way as to create a series of waves, both in terms of tempo and dynamics, leading to the final fugue, and superimposed on this overall organization are a number of subordinate patterns. Variations in tonic major and minor more or less alternate with each other; only once is there a variation in another key (the twenty-first, which is in the relative minor). Legato variations are usually succeeded by staccato ones; variations whose texture is fragmentary are in general followed by more homophonic ones. ... the organization of the variation set is not so much concentric—with each variation deriving coherence from its relationship to the theme—as edge-related, with each variation being lent significance by its relationship with what comes before and after it, or by the group of variations within which it is located. In other words, what gives unity to the variation set ... is not the theme as such, but rather a network of 'family resemblances', to use Wittgenstein's term, between the different variations."
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There are various opinions about the organization of the Handel Variations. Hans Meyer, for example, sees the divisions as nos. 1–8 ('strict'), 9–12 ('free'), 13 ('synthesis'), 14–17 ('strict') and 18–25 ('free'), culminating in the fugue. William Horne emphasizes paired variations: nos. 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, 11 and 12, 13 and 14, 23 and 24. This helps him to group the set as 1–8, 9–18, 19–25, with each group ending with a fermata and preceded by one or more variation pairs. John Rink, focusing on Brahms's dynamic markings, writes,
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"Brahms takes pains to control the intensity level throughout the twenty-five variations, maintaining a state of flux in the first half, and then keeping the temperature perceptibly low after the peak in Variations 13–15 until the massive 'crescendo' towards the fugue begins in Variation 23. We thus find a sensitivity to motion and momentum that complements—and possibly transcends in importance to the listener—the elegance of structure about which so many authors have (legitimately) enthused.
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Unity is maintained, at least in part, by using Handel's key signature of B major throughout most of the set, varied by only a few exceptions in the tonic minor, and by repeating Handel's four-bar/two-part structure, including the repeats, in most of the work.
The variations
The performer of the audio files in this section is Martha Goldstein.
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Theme. Aria
Handel's theme is divided into two parts, each four bars in length and each repeated. The elegant aria moves in stately quarter notes in time with "a ceremonial character typical of its period". For Tovey the lugubrious tone suggests a "kind of Hungarian funeral march", while Malcolm MacDonald sees it as "florid" and "a Hungarian fantasia".
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Variation 15
Following without a pause from the previous number, Variation 15, marked forte, is a bravura variation building relentlessly toward an exciting climax. It consists of a one-bar pattern, varied only slightly, of two declamatory chords in eighth notes in the higher registers, followed by lower sixteenth notes that echo Handel's original turns. A prominent upbeat creates syncopated energy. It has been called an étude for Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2.
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Variation 16
Variation 16 continues from Variation 15 as a "variation of variation", repeating the pattern of two high eighth notes followed by a run of lower sixteenth notes. It also forms another pairing with Variation 17. Baroque contrapuntal techniques appear again in this canon, described by Malcolm MacDonald as "wittier" than the canon of Variation 6.). It uses chords almost exclusively in the root position, perhaps as another reminiscence of "antique" music. In a technique often used by Brahms, the melodic line is hidden in an inner part. This variation opens a lengthy quiet section which includes nos. 19–22, "not noticeably interrelated".
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Variation 23
At Variation 23 the rise toward a final climax begins. It is clearly paired with the following Variation 24, which continues its pattern but in a more hurried, more urgent manner.
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Variation 24
In preparation for the climactic final variation, Variation 24 intensifies the excitement, replacing the triplets of Variation 23 with masses of sixteenth notes. Clearly modeled on the preceding, it is another example of Brahms's use of "variation of variation". Despite its magnitude, Littlewood suggests, the fugue avoids separation from the rest of the set by its comparable texture. "In this way it systematically creates a web of links between past and present, achieving synthesis rather than quotation or parody." Michael Musgrave in The Music of Brahms writes,<blockquote>"Brahms brings his subject, derived, like that of the Diabelli fugue, from the theme, into contrapuntal relationships involving diminution, augmentation, stretto, building to the final peroration through a long dominant pedal with two distinct ideas above. But the pianism is an equal part of the conception, and in this, the most complex example of Brahms's virtuoso style, the characteristic spacings in thirds, sixths and wide spans between the hands are employed as never before. Indeed, the pianistic factor serves to create the great contrasts within the fugue, which transcends a traditional fugal movement to create a further set of variations, in which many of the previous textures are recalled in the context of the equally transformed fugal theme."</blockquote>
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Reception and aftermath
An entry in Clara Schumann's diary about the Handel Variations gives an idea of how close the relationship between her and Brahms was, as well as Brahms's sometimes extraordinary insensitivity: "On Dec 7th I gave another soirée, at which I played Johannes' Handel Variations. I was in agonies of nervousness, but I played them well all the same, and they were much applauded. Johannes, however, hurt me very much by his indifference. He declared that he could no longer bear to hear the variations, it was altogether too dreadful for him to listen to anything of his own and to have to sit by and do nothing. Although I can well understand this feeling, I cannot help finding it hard when one has devoted all one's powers to a work, and the composer himself has not a kind word for it." Yet in the following spring (April 1862) Brahms wrote, in a note to a critic to whom he was sending a copy of the work, "I am fond of it and value it particularly in relation to my other works".
Clara Schumann premiered the work in Hamburg on December 7, when she visited Brahms's home town to give a series of performances, which also included the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor—which had not been well received when Brahms introduced it to Leipzig in the Gewandhaus in January 1858—and the premiere of the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor. Clara's performance of the Handel Variations in Hamburg was a triumph, which she repeated soon afterward in Leipzig. During that winter, Brahms also gave performances of the Handel Variations, as a result of which he made minor alterations to the score." as he described it to Clara, of his first large-scale orchestral work, the First Piano Concerto, the Handel Variations became an important landmark in the developing career of Brahms. Another seven years passed before his reputation was firmly established by A German Requiem in Bremen in 1868, and it took a full fifteen years before he made his mark as a symphonist with his first symphony (1876).
During what was probably the first meeting of Brahms and Richard Wagner in January 1863, Brahms performed his Handel Variations. Despite the great differences between the two men in musical style and an underlying tension based on musical politics—Brahms championing a more conservative approach to music while Wagner, along with Franz Liszt, called for "the music of the future" with new forms and new tonalities—Wagner complimented the work graciously, if not wholeheartedly, saying, "One sees what still may be done in the old forms when someone comes along who knows how to use them".
Arrangements
The piece is often heard in a version that was arranged for orchestra by the British composer and Brahms enthusiast Edmund Rubbra in 1938. The orchestration was first performed at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert conducted by Adrian Boult. The ballet Brahms/Handel, made by New York City Ballet balletmaster Jerome Robbins in collaboration with Twyla Tharp, was set to this orchestration. The work has also been transcribed for solo organ by French-Canadian composer Rachel Laurin.
Recordings
Recordings of the set on a 19th-century piano include:
- Hardy Rittner. Johannes Brahms. Complete Piano Works Vol. 5. Label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm. Played on a overstrung grand piano by Steinway & Sons (c. 1860).
- Christoph Dohr. Johannes Brahms. Works for Piano Solo. Label: Verlag Dohr. Played on a piano by Johann Baptist Streicher (1861).
- Alice Baccalini. Johannes Brahms. Piano Music on Period Instruments. Label: Da Vinci Classics. Played on a piano by Pleyel (1875).
Notes
External links
- Variationen für eine liebe Freundin: aria di Händel. autograph manuscript in the Library of Congress
- Free score
- Detailed listening guide based on a recording by Martin Jones
- Sleeve notes from a recording by Seta Tanyel (free registration required)
- Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel played by Leon Fleisher
- played by Murray Perahia