Johannes Brahms is a perplexing fellow. While he is definitely a Romantic composer, heavily influenced by Schumann and Schubert, he also wrote counterpoint that was worthy of Bach and used sonata form (developing and combining themes) in ways reminiscent of Mozart and Beethoven. Today’s selection, the Variations on a Theme by Haydn, shows off all of these strengths, being full of both emotion and also technical brilliance, The only thing wrong with it is the name: his attribution of the theme to Haydn is almost certainly mistaken.
All the music from the this series can be found and enjoyed here.
Hello, Mr. Schilling. Another enjoyable piece and commentary, which I thank you for.
A suggestion for a future post (from your post): the differences in “variations on a theme of [composer A] by [composer B]”.
You could focus on a single [composer B] and the differences in their “variations”, or you could focus on multiple [composer B]’s and the differences in how they approached their “variations”, or you could focus on the difference between [composer A] and [composer B], or you could focus on some other Mr. Schilling-interesting aspect.
I’ve always enjoyed Beethoven’s 6 variations on “Nel cor più non mi sento” (by Paisiello). They are a wonderful study of Beethoven’s different musical personalities, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0SaPUhD4rc
(first variation isn’t a variation, of course, it is the original piece)Report