51 / 128
On 13 September 1860 Brahms gave Clara as a birthday present an
arrangement of the second movement from the sumptuous String
Sextet no.1 (op.18) that he had just composed, a work of classical
character yet also wholly innovative. The original theme of this
slow movement and its variations, with the gait of a noble march,
at once solemn and passionate, lends itself to gestures evocative of
Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart.
Following this same approach, the Brahmsian variation laboratory was
extremely active over the next two years, with the Variations and Fugue
on a Theme of Handel (op.24) of 1861 – itself preceded by the Variations on a
Theme of Schumann for piano four hands (op.23) – then the Variations on a
Theme of Paganini (op.35, 1862-63).
‘Handelian in its dimensions, its breadth, its movement, its power, its
musculature, an air of robust health very typical of the old classical master’,
the op.24 set makes monumental technical demands that require an
audacity novel even in that period of pianistic acrobatics. And yet its
virtuosity is never an end in itself, but is deployed solely to further the
expressive purposes of a style that aims to suggest orchestral textures
and a mood that is above all poetic. Clara, who premiered the work and
was passionately fond of it, nonetheless admitted that it was beyond her
capacities.
51
GEOFFROY COUTEAU