| Programme
summary
Variations and Fugue on a theme of Handel Op. 24 (1861)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Brahms’s solo piano works cover his entire career, beginning
with the Classic-Romantic forms – big sonatas (Schumann
called them ‘veiled symphonies’), variations,
and ballades – and ending with short works mostly called
‘Capriccio’ or ‘Intermezzo’. The ‘Handel’
and ‘Paganini’ variations represent Brahms the
virtuoso; but where the latter constitutes a formidable set
of études, the virtuosity of the Handel variations
lies as much in its application of compositional techniques
as its difficulty (which, however, is considerable). Emulation
of the past, typical of mid- to late-19th-century music, colours
a large proportion of Brahms’s output; here his models
were Beethoven’s 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli,
where the penultimate variation is a fugue, and the contrapuntal
challenge of the canonic elements in Bach’s Goldberg
Variations.
Brahms’s compositional virtuosity centres on transforming
a simple theme in mood, texture, dynamic – indeed, every
compositional variable except the melody and form of Handel’s
‘Air’. Brahms knew how to maintain interest over
long periods without changing key. Where Beethoven, dismissing
Diabelli’s waltz as a ‘cobbler’s patch’,
used its harmonic scheme only as a point of departure, Brahms,
like Bach, sticks closely to the harmonic structure of his
model, although Handel’s unalloyed B flat major is spiced
with minor-mode elements as early as variation 2, and some
variations are entirely in the parallel minor. The melody
is reduced to an outline, and the exact number of bars in
the theme is adhered to; Brahms even redeploys some of Handel’s
baroque ornamentation.
The theme consists of four bars, harmonically open and repeated,
and a balancing four, harmonically closed and also repeated.
Brahms occasionally varies the repeat within a variation,
usually by turning the texture inside out (placing a middle
part in the treble and vice versa). He apparently conceived
some variations in pairs, linked by similarity or pointed
contrast, as I have tried to suggest below:
| Var.
1: |
diatonically
pure as the theme: a crisp rhythm, a prancing bass; Var.
2: in marked contrast, oozes chromaticism in
a continual two-against-three rhythm. |
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| Var.
3: |
quiet, choppy
rhythm; Var. 4: risoluto, thrusting
with off-beat accents, nearly ending in the minor mode. |
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| Var.
5: |
expressive,
in the minor mode: Var. 6, also in minor,
adapts Var. 5’s melody as a two-part canon. |
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| Var.
7: |
back in the
major, bright, brassy; Var. 8 moves the
same rhythm to the left hand, like a drumbeat. |
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| Var.
9: |
cousin to
the chromatic Var. 2, but solemn, grandiose. |
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| Var.
10: |
energico,
sending the main notes of the theme flying between different
registers; Var. 11, a telling contrast:
classical charm lightly disguising contrapuntal ingenuity. |
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| Var
12: |
horns sound
in the left hand beneath a delicate tracery. |
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| Var.
13: |
Largamente
– broadly, not much slower: the repeats are varied
to contrast the sonorous lower register with a higher
repeat. |
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| Var.
14: |
trills, stride
bass: a full panoply of virtuosity. |
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| Var.
15: |
a decisive
upbeat and a flowing motive, elements which Var.16
turns into Mendelssohn fairy-music. |
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| Var.
17: |
sustained,
horn-like middle (bearing the theme), and pointed right-hand
figure which Var. 18 makes flowing, while
gently displacing the theme. |
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| Var.
19: |
stands alone
through its dance-like compound metre. |
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| Var.
20: |
based entirely
on the smallest intervals, a surging climax of chromaticism. |
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| Var.
21: |
three notes
against four and, uniquely, in G minor, the nearest relative
key. |
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| Var.
22: |
all in a high
register, underpinned by a repeated B flat; a hint of
baroque in the rhythm. |
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| Var.
23: |
triplets,
lively, staccato; Var. 24 continuing
this mood but swamping the triplets with a flood of faster
notes. |
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| Var.
25: |
a virtuosic
cousin to the crisp first variation. |
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| Fugue:
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the subject
is based on Handel’s theme, and much of the figuration
is clearly related to earlier variations. Here Brahms
is off the hook, and can indulge in dramatic key-changes
as well as contrapuntal tricks: the theme is heard upside-down
and at half speed, and for a while the impression of driving
power is suspended before a crescendo introduces the combination
of the theme with its upside-down version, and a climax
like the chiming of bells. |
Summary by Emeritus Professor Julian Rushton
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