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These principles, already applied to op.9 (in which Brahms even inverts the
melody and the bass theme, placing the latter in the treble), are still more
apparent in the second set of variations, op.21. This publication consists of
two books, again numbered in reverse chronological order, and is probably
one of the least known to the wider public.
The Variations on a Hungarian Song, first sketched in 1853 and and completed
in 1856, are based on a theme skilfully chosen for its rhythmic potential –
Brahms very likely obtained it from the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi,
then a refugee in Hamburg, who presented it to Joachim.
Brahms called the Variations on an Original Theme ‘my philosophical
variations’; this work shows a new concern for analysis, which strips it of all
conventional Romantic seductions. ‘The difficulty consists in domesticating
the imagination’, wrote Brahms, who aimed to subject his ‘chattering
mind’ to the rigorous beauty of Classicism. This set of variations, whose
precise date of composition remains uncertain (we know it was finished
by the summer of 1857), in any case constitutes the earliest attempt at that
synthesis between Classicism and Romanticism that the composer would
achieve only in later years.
50 BRAHMS_COMPLETE SOLO PIANOWORKS