Brahms and the Variation Canon

Brahms and the Variation CanonAuthor(s): Elaine R. SismanReviewed work(s):Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 132-153Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746199 .Accessed: 22/05/2012 09:54

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Brahms and the Variation Canon

ELAINE R. SISMAN

A champion of the "old forms," in Wagner's words, Brahms wrote variations throughout his life: seven independent sets and nine variation movements from op. 1 to op. 120.1 Moreover, the forceful views on variation form that he ex- pressed in letters to friends over a twenty-year period reveal that variations enabled him to assess his relationship to his musical forebears and contemporaries. In three often-cited letters to Joseph Joachim, Adolf Schubring, and Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Brahms consciously categorized and judged the variation in its different historical manifestations, deplor- ing its unworthy practitioners-seemingly ev- eryone but Bach and Beethoven-and staking his own claim. Particularly singled out for scorn

were those who varied the melody of the theme, while those who cultivated a newer sort of "fantasy-variation" were read out of the variation canon altogether. No stranger to melodic ma- nipulation in variations, Brahms nonetheless maintained in his letters that the bass was the most important element of a theme.2

19th-Century Music XIV/2 (Fall 1990). ? by the Regents of the University of California.

An earlier version of this paper was read at the International Brahms Festival-Conference in Detroit, April 1980.

'Kalbeck quoted Wagner as commenting that Brahms's Handel Variations, op. 24, showed "what could still be done with the old forms." See Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1904 -14), II, 117.

2The basic survey of Brahms's variations remains Viktor Luithlen, "Studie zu Johannes Brahms' Werken in Varia- tionen form," Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 14 (1927), 286-320. More specialized studies include Alfred Orel, "Skizzen zu Joh. Brahms' Haydn-Variationen," Zeitschrift ffir Musikwissenschaft 5 (1922-23), 296-315; Ernest Walker, "Brahms's Variations," The Monthly Musical Rec- ord 70 (1940), 33-36; Hans Hirsch, Rhythmisch-metrische Untersuchungen zur Variationstechnik von Johannes Brahms (Ph.D. diss., Hamburg, 1963); Jiirgen Wetschky, Die Kanontechnik in der Instrumentalmusik von Johannes Brahms, K61ner Beitrdge zur Musikforschung, vol. 35 (Re- gensburg, 1967), pp. 27-37, 202 -14; Gerhard Puchelt, Va- riationen ffir Klavier im 19. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1973); Jonathan Dunsby, Structural Ambiguity in Brahms: Analytical Approaches to Four Works (Ann Arbor, 1981); and the essays and bibliography in the Norton Critical Score of Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Haydn, ed. Donald McCorkle (New York, 1976). Dunsby's is the only study to attempt to discover by analytical means what "the bass" meant to Brahms (see his chap. 2 on the Handel Variations, op. 24); his ideas are provocative.

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Yet Brahms's desire to model variations on Bach and Beethoven inevitably created friction with the association of variation in his mind and in his life with the Schumanns, an association that continued right through the period of his "first maturity," ending with the variations in the G-Major String Sextet, op. 36, of 1864.3 Especially problematic for Brahms must have been Robert Schumann's own use of Bach and Beethoven as a model in variations, so that the path to the past became a circular and even a self-referential one.

Traditional interpretations of Brahms's letters on variations have taken his words at face value, holding that he repudiated his earliest variations, Schumann, and his contemporaries and applied himself instead to a distant, ever more Beethovenian, ideal. Yet Brahms the critic stood in a sometimes uneasy relationship to Brahms the composer. The present study, in ex- ploring this relationship, will suggest that despite upholding the distant past and distancing himself from the recent past and from his lesser contemporaries, Brahms at the same time sought to reconcile older and newer models in his works. This reconciliation took place earlier than is usually supposed-by 1856-and by novel means not hitherto perceived: by pairing variation sets (or using a paired conception within a single work), by allowing the character and source of the theme to determine the nature of the variations, and by developing a new critical perspective privileging the idea of the bass.

II Always acutely aware of his forebears, and

typically self-critical, Brahms questioned the modern approach to the form in a letter to Joa- chim in June 1856.4 At this time, Brahms and

Joachim were engaged in a mutual "correspondence course" in counterpoint, and many of their letters accompanied the scores they were sending back and forth with comments. In the midst of all the canons and fugues, Joachim sent Brahms some variations on an Irish folksong, which in turn set Brahms to formulating some general thoughts about variations:

From time to time I reflect on variation form and find that it should be kept stricter, purer. The Ancients [die Alten] were very strict about retaining the bass of the theme, their actual theme. With Beethoven the melody, harmony, and rhythm are so beautifully varied. I sometimes find, however, that the Moderns [Neuere] (both of us!) more often (I don't know the right expression) worry the theme [iiber das Thema wiihlen]. We anxiously retain the entire melody, but don't manipulate it freely. We don't really create any- thing new out of it; on the contrary, we only burden it. The melody thus becomes scarcely recognizable.5

The impetus for these reflections was Brahms's inability to find enough connection with the theme in several of Joachim's variations, where the melody notes could be "found [only] with the eyes" (p. 152). Yet Brahms's other comments about Joachim's variations included approving references to their "poetic content" and to their sounding like "the most beautiful fairy- tales and ballads" (p. 156). "Strictness" and "pu- rity" did not necessarily lead to austerity.

Writing to the critic Adolf Schubring almost thirteen years later, in February 1869, Brahms described not only the technical categories of the variation form, each apparently involving a

ELAINE R. SISMAN Brahms and the Canon

30n Brahms's first maturity as a biographical and musical stage, see James Webster, "Schubert's Sonata Form and Brahms's First Maturity (II)," this journal 3 (1979), 52-71. A different view of Brahms's stylistic development is given in Robert Pascall, "Musikalische Einfliisse auf Brahms," Os- terreichische Musikzeitschrift 38 (1983), 228; Pascall di- vides Brahms's youthful stages into the period of study (to 1853) and a period of self-imposed, renewed study (1854-ca. 1860), followed by mature style. 4That Brahms was highly critical of his own works we know not only from the number of works he ultimately aban- doned or destroyed and the years of gestation and revision for those he did not (D-Minor Piano Concerto, C-Minor

Piano Quartet, the heading Vierte Sonate on his C-Major Pi- ano Sonata, op. 1), but also from his correspondence, especially with Joachim, Clara Schumann, and Elisabeth von Herzogenberg. When his friends asked for criticisms of their own works, he readily complied, with the result that his letters transmit some "first principles" about the forms, gen- res, and techniques in question. Constantin Floros suggests "Selbstkritik" as one of the characteristics of E. T. A. Hoff- mann's character Johannes Kreisler with which Brahms strongly identified; see Floros, Brahms und Bruckner. Stu- dien zur musikalischen Exegetik (Wiesbaden, 1980), p. 98. (For more on Brahms and Kreisler, see section VIII.) At this early stage, Brahms had not yet developed that ironic stance toward self-criticism that characterizes many of his later letters. 5Johannes Brahms Briefwechsel (hereafter Briefwechsel), 16 vols. (Berlin, 1907-22), vol. V, ed. Andreas Moser (Berlin, 1912, rpt. Tutzing, 1974), p. 150. (All translations are my own.)

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clear constructive choice, but also indicated the principal historical types that evolved as composers made these choices:

In a theme for [a set of] variations, it is almost only the bass that actually [eigentlich] has any meaning for me. But this is sacred to me, it is the firm foundation on which I then build my stories [die feste Grund, auf dem ich dann meine Geschichten baue]. What I do with a melody is only playing around [Spielerei] or ingenious--playing around. I think with horror of:

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. (By now you have probably taken your thoughts for a walk.)

Look at Bach's G-major variations, the Passaca- glia, etc. (The chorale-variations are a separate mat- ter.) You find that G-major theme also in Handel (also in Muffat).6 Look farther down the path made by the art of variation, look at the melodic variations of Herz and the better composers of that time.

Observe then Beethoven's variations, and, if you wish, mine. I believe you will find your variations only in Schumann (and imitators without [their own] ideas). But could we not make a distinction between variations and fantasies on a melody, a motive? (Look at the Etudes.. ? .. [Symphoniques].) Fantasy-variations. Unfortunately, its cause is that I too cannot be strict with myself [Doch leider hat es seine Ursache, daf? ich auch mir gegeniiber keine Strenge gebrau- chen kann].7

Brahms appears to adduce four types of variations, three in a quasi-historical canon and one outside it: variations on the bass, variations of

the melody, a separate category including variations by Beethoven and himself, and elabora- tions of a melody or motive in the manner of a

fantasy.8 Brahms's sympathy with the first type is suggested by his comment to Jenner that "the bass is more important than the melody," not because it remains exactly the same, but because a variation of the bass can modify the entire character of the melody more strongly than can a variation of that melody only.' Yet his ambiguous final sentence suggests that he himself had also transgressed in writing fantasy-variations.10

Similar grumblings were prompted by a set sent his way by Heinrich von Herzogenberg,

6Brahms is referring to the bass line and chord progression of the first eight measures of the Goldberg Variations, which appear as the theme of Handel's Chaconne with 62 Varia- tions in G Major (pub. 1732), and of Gottlieb Muffat's Ciac- cona in G major from the Componimenti musicali (Augs- burg, ca. 1739). 7Briefwechsel, vol. VIII, ed. Max Kalbeck (Berlin, 1915), pp. 217 -18. The excerpts which Brahms regarded with horror come from his Variations on a Hungarian Song, op. 21, no. 2.

8By "building" variations on the bass, I mean both senses in which Brahms describes the importance of the bass: invent- ing something new ("iiber den gegebenen Bass erfinde ich wirklich neu") and discovering new melodies in it ("ich erfinde in ihm neue Melodien"). 9Gustav Jenner, Johannes Brahms als Mensch, Lehrer, und Kiinstler (Elwert, 1905), p. 197. Brahms's assertions of the importance of the bass were not limited to variation form. When Richard Heuberger showed him some songs and choral pieces, Brahms remarked, "Auch muB sich eine derartige Konstruktion immer durch den Bal v6llig erkliren. Der BaR muB eine Art Spiegelbild der Oberstimme sein." See Rich- ard Heuberger, Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms. Tagebii- cher aus den Jahren 1875 bis 1897, ed. Kurt Hofmann (Tutz- ing, 1971), p. 14. 1'Surprisingly, the context for this often-cited letter has received almost no discussion: why would Brahms be writing to Schubring about variation? Kalbeck believed that Schu- bring had sent Brahms a set of his own variations several years earlier, based on a letter of February 1862, in which Brahms wrote: "But now your review and especially your variations [Veriinderungen] definitely demanded [their own] review, and for the latter a quite sharp [one]" (Briefwechsel VIII, 189-90; Kalbeck's footnote appears on p. 189). Brahms's protestations about "theme" meaning "bass" can more likely be seen as responses to Schubring's assertions, in an 1868 review of the four-hand Schumann Variations, op. 23, that Brahms unified the set by relying on three principal motives of the theme (Schumanniana, 11 in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 3 [1868], 49-51). He would certainly have been reminded of these assertions in Schubring's review of the Deutsches Requiem (Schumann- ianna 12, in AmZ 4 [1869], 9 -11,18-20), which again had a demonstration of three-motive unity (in No. 3, "Herr, lehre doch mich"), because he responded strongly and negatively in the February 1869 letter, immediately preceding his comments on variation. Schubring's and Brahms's arguments on thematic unity are discussed in Walter M. Frisch, "Brahms and Schubring: Music and Politics at Mid-Century," this journal 7 (1984), 278-79, and Frisch, Brahms and the Princi- ple of Developing Variation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984), pp. 30-32.

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who in 1876 was about to publish the first variations ever written on a theme of Brahms:11

If I were again able to have the pleasure of conversing with you, and then could say something other than total praise ... [t]hen I would perhaps go on about variations in general, and that I would wish people would distinguish between the title Variations and something else, possibly Fantasy-Variations, or however we would otherwise want to call almost all the newer variation works. I have a singular affection for the variation form, and believe that this form still compels our talent and ability.

Beethoven treats it [with such] extraordinary se- verity, he can even justly translate [the title Varia- tions as]: alterations [Veranderungen]. What comes after him, by Schumann, H[erzogenberg], or Notte- bohm, is something else. I have, of course, as little against the method as against the music. But I wish people would also distinguish by name what is different in the method.12

Brahms here reiterates the point he made to Schubring that fantasy-variations are not really variations at all.13

III Identifying the bass as the essence of the

theme, in the Schubring letter, Brahms advo- cated 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. "The bass" as a concept embodies a historical development of strict (streng) treatments: from Baroque composers, who took the bass as "their actual theme," to Beethoven, who varied "melody, harmony, and rhythm," while presumably re- maining faithful to the theme's structure (although this is never made explicit beyond a reference to his strictness), to Brahms, who wishes he could be even stricter with himself. Brahms's youthful modesty to Joachim about including himself in that historical development later turned to pride of lineage.

The two senses of erfinden used by Brahms in the same sentence of the Schubring letter-invent and discover-plot the creative trajectory offered by the bass. To invent something actually new and to discover new melodies in the bass give the bass a role at once passive and ac- tive. 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.14


"The Herzogenberg variations, Variationen fiber ein Thema von Johannes Brahms, op. 23, take as their theme Brahms's song Die Trauernde, op. 7, no. 5 (1852). The set is for some reason not part of the Brahms Nachlafl at the Ge- sellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. (On the fate of Brahms's Nachla1B itself, see Otto Biba, "New Light on the Brahms Nachlafl," in Brahms 2: Biographical, Documen- tary and Analytical Studies, ed. Michael Musgrave [Cam- bridge, 1987], pp. 39-47.) My thanks to Victor Lieberman of the Newberry Library, Chicago, for providing me with a copy. Herzogenberg was coyly apologetic about the greater prominence given Brahms's name than his own on the title page. '2Briefwechsel, vol. I, ed. Max Kalbeck (Berlin, 1907), pp. 7- 8 (20 August 1876); my translation differs from the published English translation by Hannah Bryant (rpt. New York, 1971), p. 7. Herzogenberg had in fact earlier published a set called "Acht Verainderungen," his op. 3, to which Brahms might be making a snide reference. "Veran- derungen" was also used as a title by Brahms's teacher Marxsen. '3Although the letter implied that Brahms did not object to all of "the newer variation works," he is on record as liking only a few. For example, he was partial to a four-hand set by his friend Franz Wiillner, which they often played together. Brahms wrote about Wiillner's "26 vierhdindige Variationen iiber ein altdeutsches Volkslied," op. 11, to Rieter on 11 Feb- ruary 1864, "Die Wiillnerschen Variationen machen ausser mir noch vielen Freude, und hoffe ich, daf die Leute Werk und Namen behalten" (Briefwechsel, vol. XIV, ed. Wilhelm Altmann [Berlin, 1920], p. 87). He also gave a backhanded compliment to Ferdinand Hiller's four-hand variations when he recommended them to Rieter by saying they were not at all like Hiller: "Dies ist nun wirklich ein-gar nicht Hillersches Werk und ganz reizend, angenehm, praktisch,

sogar etwas Schubertisch. Nur ziemlich lang. Unter uns! Ich halte es fiir recht empfehlenswert anderm gegeniiber, was Hiller herausgibt" (letter of 9 August 1868, Briefwechsel XIV, 160). Rieter published the set in 1870 as op. 124. 14As a passive entity, the bass also may be taken to mean not "the bass of the theme" but simply "the lowest part of the texture." In two of Brahms's variations from the 1850s (op. 9, op. 21/2), the theme melody immediately goes into the bass, while in two others (op. 21/2, op. 18), the first variation is in the bass register. These techniques, by no means new with Brahms, establish that area as equal to the treble in importance.

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Brahms dismissed variations that featured purely melodic display, disparaging Henri Herz (whom Schumann had already skewered in print thirty-odd years earlier) as well as the obvious melodic tinkering in his own earlier set of variations on a Hungarian song.'5 Broadening his attack, he raised the problem of "fantasy- variations," which flowed beyond the histori- cally sanctioned limits of the form into a newer, Schumann-inspired stream.16 He pretended, to Herzogenberg, that his criticism was merely one of nomenclature,'7 but his real feelings were revealed to Schubring. As the sole example of "fantasies on a melody, a motive," Brahms mentioned "Etudes," probably referring to Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, op. 13, based on a melody for flute by Hauptmann von Fricken; Schumann had later renamed them "Itudes en forme de variations," labeling as

"6tudes" the two farthest from the theme in structure." Also at issue might have been Schu- mann's other multi-piece works with freely reworked common motives such as the Carnaval, op. 9, subtitled "scenes mignonnes sur quatre notes," or the variationlike Impromptus on a Theme by Clara Wieck, op. 5. While Brahms criticized Schumann-imitators, he had no ap- parent difficulty with Beethoven-imitation.

A look at the lesser composers he mentioned as the perpetrators of fantasy-variations, Notte- bohm and Herzogenberg, enables us to propose a more specific meaning for fantasy-variation: extensive alterations in structure, meter, and tempo of the theme while retaining its melody or motives.19 Brahms's earliest awareness of this might be the tendency he had decried to Joachim toward "worrying the theme," or "bur- dening" the melody without really creating something new out of it.

Brahms owned and played Nottebohm's Var- iations on a Theme of J. S. Bach, op. 17, published in 1865 (ex. 1).20 Together with frequent

15He thus joined a long-standing critical tradition objecting to excessive melodic embellishments in both improvised variations and variation form. For eighteenth- and nine- teenth-century sources, see my Haydn's Variations (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1978), chap. 1. Schumann railed against "shameless vulgarity" in the variations of his contemporaries (Gesammelte Schriften iiber Musik und Musi- ker, vol. I [3rd edn. Leipzig, 1875], pp. 218-30; see also Leon Plantinga, Schumann as Critic [New Haven, 1967], especially chap. 10). Significant in this regard is Arrey von Dom- mer's revision of Heinrich Christoph Koch's Musikalisches Lexicon of 1802 (Heidelberg, 1865). Koch had discussed only variations of the melody, while Dommer compared melodic technique unfavorably with deeper and freer transforma- tions. Brahms made approving references to Dommer's Lex- ikon in his letters. 16Brahms's use of the title "Fantasien" for the late piano pieces, op. 116, does not clarify his ideas on fantasy variation. See Johathan Dunsby, "The Multi-piece in Brahms: Fantasien, op. 116," in Brahms: Biographical, Documen- tary, and Analytical Studies, ed. Robert Pascall (Cam- bridge, 1983), pp. 167-89. "'But Brahms only occasionally fine-tuned his own termi- nology for variations. Despite his attraction to the term Verdnderungen, he used "Variationen" for all of his independent sets. And of his variation movements, only the finale of his B6-Major String Quartet, op. 67, was given a title ("Poco Allegretto con variazioni"); in other movements, not even individual variations are labeled. Brahms also inserted theme-and-variation sections into works in sonata form, as well as in ABA and other multi-part forms, where, of course, a title would not be at issue. For a discussion of the importance of variation in Brahms's sonata-form movements, see Viktor Urbantschich, "Die Entwicklung der Sonatenform bei Brahms," Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 14 (1927), 275-76. The varied returns in Brahms's slow rondo and ABA movements are discussed in my "Brahms's Slow Movements: Reinventing the 'Closed' Forms," in Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives, ed. George Bozarth (Oxford, 1990), pp. 79-103.

'8In the second edition of 1852, Brahms might also have been referring to the formerly fashionable fantasies on popu- lar opera themes, such as he himself used to play in his youth, and whose techniques he now saw incorporated into pieces titled "Variations." His earliest public appearances in Hamburg (1847-49) all included such pieces as Thalberg's Fantasia on Themes from Bellini's Norma and Fantasy on Motives from Don Giovanni, as well as his own (lost) Fantasy on a Favorite Waltz (BVAnh.IIa Nr. 13, 1849). See Kurt Hofmann, Zeittafel, pp. 6, 8. In fact, the finale of the Symphonic Etudes was based on a melody from a Marschner opera (Der Templar und die Jiidin; see Eric Sams, "Schumann and the Tonal Analogue," in Robert Schu- mann: The Man and His Music, ed. Alan Walker [London, 1972], p. 401). 190n the other hand, Brahms considered the third chorale verse in Bach's motet Jesu meine Freude, where the varied returns are accompanied by considerable alteration in phrase structure, "the most beautiful, boldest, and strictest variation" (Brahms to Wiillner, Briefwechsel, vol. XV, ed. Ernst Wolff [Berlin, 1921], p. 168). 20A review in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung claimed that the set combined the "harmonic riches of Schumann and the formal dexterity of Mendelssohn" (AmZ 37 [13 September 1865], cols. 610-12), but Clara Schu- mann, who played them with Nottebohm himself, wrote to Brahms that "the real thing- originality--is lacking" (letter of 4 February 1866, Clara Schumann-Johannes Brahms: Briefe aus den Jahren 1853-96 [hereafter Schumann- Brahms Briefe], ed. Berthold Litzmann, 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1927], 1, 516). Nottebohm's theme is the Sarabande of Bach's D-Minor French Suite. The unpublished Brahms-Notte- bohm correspondence in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde might contain material on the set.

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changes in tempo and meter, they feature such structural departures from the theme as the big expansion in the second half of variation 5, a pastoral maggiore, the chromatic fugato of variation 8, and the final variation (9) merging with an expanded, climactic return of the theme in an organlike voicing. On the other hand, the melody, melodic motives, and harmony of the theme rarely depart widely from it. Variation procedures include standard melodic embel- lishment (variation 1) and Beethovenian "re- duction" (variation 6, a stripped-down version of the theme's harmony).

The offending set by Herzogenberg, to my knowledge not discussed in the Brahms litera-

ture, also supports this interpretation (ex. 2). Fully seven of the ten variations are in different meters, and every variation is in a tempo different from the theme; two are in keys other than the tonic minor or major. The slightly irregular phrase structure of the theme reappears in the first variation and never thereafter, although six other opening segments are similar. Lengthy transitions link two pairs of variations. The melody of the theme is usually present, though the connection may be labored; occasionally it disappears.

Herzogenberg's often clumsy figuration and rhythmic motives seem inspired by Schumann, or filtered through Brahms's own four-hand


a. Theme Sarabande. Andantino. Etwas langsam

2 doO

b. Variation 1 c. Variation 5

Allegretto con moto

2 do 2 do

d. Variation 8 d. Andante Ziemlich

langsamImo .

lMO ' II Imo

p legato 2do

Example 1: Nottebohm, Variations on a Theme by J. S. Bach, op. 17.

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a. Theme b. Variation 3 Andante Allegro

.A-l

l - -

o. 3 -+8va-

-

2do 2do

c. Variation 4

L'istesso tempo

d. Variation 7 Lento, appassionato

I MO* p espress.

2do 1 - -aIa TT- * TY

Example 2: Herzogenberg, Variations on a Theme of Brahms, op. 23.

Schumann Variation set, op. 23, an opus number probably consciously chosen by Herzogen- berg (his previous variation set was op. 13). Both op. 23 sets close with elegiac reminiscences of the theme, and Herzogenberg's variation 7 also reharmonizes Brahms's A-minor theme in C# minor using chord patterns and spacings of Schumann's op. 13 (ex. 3). Herzogenberg's penchant for Brahms reminiscences in works of the same genre has been described as "shameless pilfering.""21 All in all, the Nottebohm set is much superior to the Herzogenberg, but clearly neither is up to Brahms's high standards.

IV Ironically, in light of Brahms's exclusion of

Schumann from among the writers of true variations, Schumann's letters and criticism of the 1830s adumbrate the points that Brahms would arrive at twenty and thirty years later. Schu- mann too sought to reconcile strictness of approach with poetic intent.22 He admired the variations of Bach and Beethoven above all, and suggested that the theme be carefully chosen-

21Walter Frisch, "The 'Brahms Fog': On Tracing Brahmsian Influences," The American Brahms Society Newsletter 7 (1989), 2.

22Schumann's comments and attitudes on variation are discussed in Werner Schwarz, Robert Schumann und die Vari- ation. Mit Besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Klavierwerke (Kassel, 1932); a few passages are translated in Robert U. Nelson, The Technique of Variation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1948), pp. 93-94.

138

marcato ii canto espressivo

.

.marcato i Thema- sempre col Pedale

Example 3: Schumann, Symphonic Etudes, op. 13, variation 2.


he himself is "strict" (streng) toward it-"because the rest of the construction is based on it" (weil sich der ganze Fortbau darauf griindet).23 Every theme has a particular character, different aspects of which may be revealed in the variations; Schumann described the character of von Fricken's melody as "pathetic" and claimed that the Symphonic Etudes tried to reveal the different component "colors" of that character.24 Indeed, the more reminiscences associated with a theme, the more profound will be the musical thoughts arising from it.25 Taking his own advice, Schumann chose themes to vary or otherwise explore that almost always had personal significance. But choosing such a theme did not necessarily imply the absence of an older model. In a fragmentary autobiographi- cal note, for example, he commented that the Impromptus on a Theme of Clara Wieck, op. 5, were inspired by Bach, and should not be taken as a new form of varying.26 (A more likely model is Beethoven's Eb-Major "Eroica" Variations, op. 35. Schumann wrote a new bass line to Clara's theme and presented it alone at the be- ginning of the piece, like Beethoven's "Introdu-

zione col Basso del Tema"; the final variation also merges with a fugue.) Finally, the historical and aesthetic character of the theme ought to dictate its treatment: one ought not to trifle with a Handel theme the same way one would with a Bellini theme, nor should a bold robber's song be given softly flowing variations.27

Schumann's criticism also associated variation and fantasy. In 1836, crusading against the empty figuration of the salon variation, he wrote that

variations should create a whole, whose center is the theme. ... The time is past when one can create as- tonishment with a sugary figure, a yearning suspen- sion, an Eb-major run over the keyboard. Now one strives for thoughts, for inner connections, for poetic totality, with the whole bathed in fresh fantasy.

He claimed that the age of variation was ending to make room for the capriccio.28 The "whole- ness" of a set of variations and the centrality of its theme argued for a deep relationship--"inner connections"-between theme and variations. But this seems to be precisely Brahms's point in identifying the bass as the essence of the theme: melodic resemblances alone and the figurations they inspire are more superficial than the profound relationships, even melodic ones, generated by the bass. In short, Schumann elaborated the same genealogy and typology for his variations that Brahms was later to uphold.

2Letter to Hauptmann von Fricken, September 1834; Ju- gendbriefe von Robert Schumann, ed. Clara Schumann (3rd edn. Leipzig, 1885), p. 253. 24Ibid., pp. 253-54. Schumann also derided composers who took prosaic, even trivial tunes as their themes, because then the variations would be unable to "fill [one] with rap- ture" (begeistern; Gesammelte Schriften I, 221). 25Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften I, 221. 26Wolfgang Boetticher, Robert Schumann in seinen Schrift- en und Briefen (Berlin, 1942), p. 24. For other details about this piece, see Claudia Stevens Becker, "A New Look at Schumann's Impromptus," Musical Quarterly 67 (1981), 568-86.

27Schwarz, Schumann und die Variation, pp. 19-20. 28Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften I, 221, 223, 218. The first edition of Schumann's collected writings appeared in 1854.

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V An eloquent critical conspectus that offers a

valuable gloss on the critical stances of both Brahms and Schumann was provided by another member of the Schumann circle, the Berlin composer Julius Schiffer.29 Schiffer devoted himself to a rank-ordered list of types of variations, prompted by the dispiriting current con- dition of the form:

The variation form, although cultivated by the mas- ters with special partiality, is still so badly mis- treated by bunglers and hacks that when it appears, people avoid it or encounter it with mistrust, and as a consequence of its bad reputation noteworthy theo- rists and aestheticians scarcely want to grant it even a modest spot next to the legitimate art forms. This appears to us unjust.

If we exclude the Bravura-variation, then the different forms of variation divide themselves chiefly into three principal categories. In the first, which can appropriately be described as the decorative, all inter- est lies in the theme. In each variation, this is clothed, as it were, in a new attire, but it is not disguised. ... It is usually a known melody and the goal of this genre is the ever-new charm of its differently turned-out repetitions.

-In the second [category], which we call the contrapuntal, the center of gravity lies in the variations themselves.... Here the theme is only the outline, on which different architectonic creations are built.... This category stands higher than the first ... [and features] the creation of independent structures on the basis of the given harmonic relationships....

-In the third category, the center of gravity lies neither in the theme alone nor in the variations alone, but rather in the psychological bond between the two.... That the theme is usually an invention of the composer's-a so-called original theme-is entirely in the nature of the thing. The individual

variations will have to manifest a connection with the theme as well as with each other... ; in other respects, however, they will come into the world bringing with them their newborn motives and new developmental laws, thus [each] to expand into autonomous art forms-often even as related movements [which are] not directly derived from the theme, [but] like "intermezzi" draw into their own realm. Just as the variation form in this genre achieves its highest significance, it reaches at the same time its outermost limits, striving to overcome them and to pass into the sphere of the free fantasy. It appears not inappropriate to give them the name Fan- tasy-Variations.30

Schiiffer slanted his descriptions in order to create an ascending order of value in variations: from charming reminders of the theme, to new architectonic creations, to autonomous art forms.

Brahms, Schumann, and Schiiffer thus sur- veyed the same terrain with similar tools and, despite differences in ideology and language, with remarkably similar results. Their outlooks shared the notion, new in written descriptions of the variation, that the choice of theme counts, and that the essential aspects of that theme are refracted onto the variations by a method that determines both the work's center of gravity, in Schiiffer's attractive formulation, and the relationship between theme and variations. In positing the bass as the agent through which the implications of the theme may be explored and revealed most fully, Brahms immediately staked a claim in appropriating the past, yet the bass may also be seen as the mechanism creating a psychological bond between theme and variations, as well as the source of the new motives and "developmental laws" described by Schiiffer. Even Schumann had noted that the theme imposes certain stylistic propensities that must be maintained. Schumann implicitly

29Schiffer (1823 -1901), a conductor as well as composer, had earlier made the acquaintance of Schumann and Men- delssohn: Schumann had even included him in a kind of new "Davidsbund" in a footnote in "Neue Bahnen" (NZfM 39 [1853], 185). On Schiffer, see Reinhold Sietz in MGG XI, cols. 1533-34. Joachim played Brahms's B-Major Trio, op. 8, at a "Rauchkollegium" with Schiffer in 1854 (letter to Brahms of December, 1854; Briefwechsel V, 79). By a curi- ous coincidence, Schiffer's discussion of variations appeared in the Berlin music periodical Echo in the same volume that saw the ill-conceived and ill-fated "Manifesto" (Erkldrung) by Brahms et al. against the Lisztian "New Ger- man School" (Berliner Musik-Zeitung Echo X [1860], 95, cited in Puchelt, Variationen fiir Klavier im 19. Jahrhun- dert, pp. 142-43). The Erkli rung appeared in March.

30Puchelt, Variationen, pp. 142-43. Schiffer had written a set of Phantasie- Variationen, op. 2, in 1853, which was then reviewed by the Liszt-disciple Joachim Raff in the Neue Zeitschrift ffir Musik as "little fantasy pieces on a theme, such as we have in recent times also in the Impromptus by Schumann on a theme by Clara Wieck" (NZfM 38 [20 May 1853], 228-29). It was Raff who, meeting Brahms in Weimar in 1852, had told Brahms that his E-Minor Scherzo, op. 4, reminded him of Chopin, to which Brahms responded, probably disingenuously, that he did not know any Chopin.

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and Schiffer explicitly took their variations that extra step into the realm of fantasy, a boundary line that Brahms was unwilling to ad- mit could be crossed in a variation work.

While Schumann wrote of "poetic totality" and Schiffer of "autonomous ... intermezzi" as the goal of their ideal variations, the following remarks attributed to Brahms transmit his only views on the subject of how the variations ought to fit together. Ernst Rudorff recalled him saying:

There are two methods of variations; one is such that you can at will omit one or the other or several [variations] without the whole receiving damage. I call this [type] for this reason "haystacks." Such a haystack are my Handel Variations, for example. The other method is marked [by the fact that] you can't take a single stone from the structure without damaging the whole. To this belong the C-minor variations and also the Eb variations for piano by Beethoven, [and] furthermore, all variations which form part of his sonatas or even his symphonies.31

These images of structures that are either relatively random or more determined remind us that architectural metaphors other than organic imagery held sway in Brahms's correspondence about variations.32 They also have implications for the problem of a larger shape for variation sets, recently formulated by Jonathan Dunsby, but which lies outside the scope of this study.33

VI To Brahms, the character and source of a

theme played a central role in determining the nature of the variations he wrote on that theme.34 Hardly startling in itself and strikingly anticipated by Schumann, this view of Brahms's themes is nonetheless not usually taken into account in evaluating the course of his career in variations, perhaps because it departs strikingly from the practice of earlier composers writing on borrowed themes. In Beetho- ven's Diabelli Variations, for example, William Kinderman points to the "discrepancy between the commonplace waltz and the formidable ar- ray of variations."35" There is no such discrepancy in Brahms, to whom the theme initiated the psychological bond spoken of by Schiffer. A theme that is a song led to melody-oriented variations, as in piano sonatas, ops. 1 and 2, and the Hungarian Song Variations. By the same token, Brahms's choice of a Schumann theme seemed to require or imply a more characteristically Schumannesque expression in the variations; a Handel theme received a stricter application of the variation principle, as well as the use of such Baroque topics as siciliana and musette; a theme by Paganini was chosen for virtuosic variations.36 And like Schumann, Brahms often chose themes rich in "reminiscence."

Two variations from the big keyboard sets of 1861, the Handel Variations and the four-hand Schumann Variations, ops. 24 and 23 respectively, will serve to illustrate both the psychological bond and the structural limitations imposed by the bass. (That the Handel set ends with a fugue and the Schumann set ends with a funeral march already tells much of the story.) The sixth variation of the Handel and the fourth


31Ernst Rudorff, "Johannes Brahms. Erinnerungen und Be- trachtungen," Schweizerische Musikzeitung 97 (1957), 82- 83. Rudorff added that Brahms would undoubtedly have included his own Haydn Variations in the second category. 32In the Schubring letter, Brahms mentioned building his stories; in a letter about Brahms's Schumann Variations, op. 9, Joachim referred to the varied Architektur of the variations and to Brahms himself as a Baumeister (letter of 27 June 1854, Briefwechsel V, 48). Schumann had used the term Fortbau. 33Dunsby, "The Multi-piece in Brahms," p. 171. Dunsby faults Schenker for his failure to offer an adequate theory about the overall structure of a set of variations, and finds that Schenker's discussion of Brahms's Handel Variations "deals with the connection of musical ideas but not with the sum of such connections." His challenge to present-day analysts to consider the issue has been taken up by Esther Cavett-Dunsby (Mozart's Variations Reconsidered: Four Case Studies [Ph.D. diss, University of London, 19851) and Nicholas Marston ("Analysing Variations: The Finale of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 74," Music Analysis 8 [19891, 303-24).

34Brahms taught Jenner that a theme must be appropriate to the form of that work, suggesting that Jenner should study the themes of Beethoven's and Schubert's sonatas to remedy his deficiencies; see Jenner, Brahms, p. 60. 35William Kinderman, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations (Oxford, 1987), p. 67. He goes on to illuminate the ways in which "this discrepancy was overcome." 36Seen in this light, Brahms's objections to the Nottebohm and Herzogenberg sets might have stemmed initially from inappropriate treatments given to a Bach sarabande and a Brahms song.

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MUSIC a. Brahms, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, op. 24, variation 6.

legato legato

1 12.

b. Brahms, Variations on a Theme of Schumann, op. 23, variation 4.

Example 4

of the Schumann sets are externally quite similar: two-part imitative minores with both hands in octaves, appearing relatively early in each cycle (see ex. 4). Several features point to op. 24/6 as a variation on a Baroque theme: despite its expressive distance from the theme (prepared somewhat by the preceding variation in minor), it is entirely canonic and resembles the theme melody.

The theme of the Schumann set, on the other hand, was chosen by Brahms for its personal meanings, its "melancholy sound of farewell," and he admitted that the variations were not far

removed from that idea.37 Opus 23/4 is only in- termittently canonic and is more consciously "mysterious" in such evocative details as a hol- low-fifth cadence (m. 8), repeated notes or tre- molo in the lowest registers of the piano during the second reprise, and syncopated sigh-motives to replace the canon. It is also the only variation in that set without any overt melodic resemblance to the theme or even so basic an

37Letter to Joachim of 29 December 1852, Briefwechsel V, 331.

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identifier as the theme's upbeat. Based instead on the descending fifth of the theme's cadential measure, it seems to function as a mood piece rather than as part of a variation group.38

Brahms's choice of theme thus suggests which set of historical references and models should operate within a single variation set- the stricter or freer interpretations of melody, bass, harmony, and structure that he later characterized as "creating something new on a given bass." He was thus able to resolve or at least har- ness the tension, manifest in his criticism, between older and newer styles in variations, and between variation and fantasy, by synthesizing them as sets of oppositions from within the canon. After choosing a theme for particular stylistic and expressive ends, his next variation work would use a contrasting or complemen- tary theme, so that the two works would form a pair. The Handel and Schumann sets of 1861, then, can be seen as such a pair. And the idea of the bass, not the bass line itself, served as a lim- iting agent. Brahms's written comments may suggest that he repudiated his own early variations, as well as those of Schumann, but the works themselves support instead the idea that he reconciled his models at a relatively early stage, continuing this dualistic approach in paired works of his first maturity.

VII Written in three short bursts-the slow

movements of the first two piano sonatas (1852)39, the Schumann Variations, op. 9 (1854), and the two D-major sets, op. 21 (1856-57)-- Brahms's early variations reveal a developing

perception of the uses of pairing. (Table 1 lists all of Brahms's variations.40) The sonata variations are obviously a pair, representing the same compositional impulse: inspired by folk song and poetry, they resemble each other more than casually in the "responsorial" themes, techniques of melodic embellishments with color- ful harmonic substitutions and digressions, and an overall structure of two progressively more figured variations in major followed by a broadly singing climactic variation in the major.41 The earlier of the two movements, in op. 1, has a simpler and more diatonically harmo- nized theme.

Just as clearly a pair, although not usually recognized as such, are the two sets in op. 21. The widely held view that op. 21, no. 1, was a newly "stricter, purer" work is based on the un- provable assertion, dating to Kalbeck, that op. 21, no. 2, had been written before op. 9.42 But there is no evidence of op. 21, no. 2, before 1856, and a fair number of letters place it in 1856.43


38In Schubring's review of op. 23, each variation was granted a character or even an underlying text, from the "tender melancholy" of the first, through different sorts of laments, to the final "Funeral March: 'Ah, you have buried a good man, (coda)-but to me he was more!' Requiescat in pace et lux perpetua luceat ei!" (Schumanniana, 11 in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 3 [1868], 49-51). Schubring's re- markable attempt to describe the poetic content of the work might also have indirectly stimulated Brahms's comparison of his variations to "stories" (Geschichten) in his 1869 letter. 39According to Brahms's own catalogue of his works, now in the Stadtbibliothek, Vienna, the Andante of op. 1 was written in April 1852, op. 2 in November 1852, and the rest of op. 1 in spring 1853. See the transcription of this catalogue in Alfred Orel, "Ein eigenhaindiges Werkverzeichnis von Jo- hannes Brahms," Die Musik 29 (1937), 529-41.

400One surprising detail about Brahms's variations concerns their mode: the vast majority of the variation movements are in minor (all but op. 67 and op. 120/2), and account for six of Brahms's nine slow movements in minor. Nearly all the independent sets, on the other hand, are in major (all but op. 9 and op. 35). 410nly the conclusions differ, the op. 1 building a quiet epi- logue on a tonic pedal, as Brahms was later to do in the slow movement of his F-Minor Sonata, op. 5, while the op. 2 does without a coda, using the Scherzo's rhythmic transforma- tion to function as a closing section. On the poetic content of these movements, see George S. Bozarth, "Brahms's Lie- der ohne Worte: The 'Poetic' Andantes of the Piano Sona- tas," in Brahms Studies, pp. 345-78. 42In Brahms's catalogue, the date of op. 21, no. 1, is given as "Anfang 1857" and that of op. 21, no. 2, as "friiher?" (Orel, 533). Kalbeck, Brahms I, 180-81, suggested that op. 21, no. 2, was perhaps drafted in 1852 or 1853. Brahms had indeed sent an autograph of the Hungarian song on which it was based to Joachim in the spring of 1853; other copies were made in 1854. See Margit L. McCorkle, Johannes Brahms: Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis (hereafter BV) (Munich, 1984), pp. 73-75. Heinz Becker's worklist in The New Grove uses the 1853 date ("Brahms, Johannes," New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie [London, 1980], vol. 3, p. 175). 43Robert Pascall, who has extensive grounds for redating many of the Brahms-Joachim letters in 1856, has concluded that op. 21, no. 2, was written at the end of 1856 and was inspired by Clara's information about Hungarian music from her trip to Budapest early in 1856; he refers in "Musi- kalische Einfliisse," p. 230, to his forthcoming study on this issue. I am indebted to Professor Pascall for calling my attention to the anomalous placement (in the summer of 1856) of some of the relevant letters.

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1. Piano Sonata in C Major, op. 1/ii 1852 2. Piano Sonata in F# Minor, op. 2/ii 1852 3. Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op. 9 1854 4. Variations on a Hungarian Song, op. 21, no. 2 1856 5. Variations on an Original Theme, op. 21, no. 1 1857

6. String Sextet in Bb Major, op. 18/ii 1860 7. Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, op. 24 1861 8. Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op. 23 (piano four-hands) 1861 9. Variations on a Theme by Paganini, op. 35 1862-63

10. String Sextet in G major, op. 36/iii 1864

11. Variations on a Theme of Haydn, op. 56a (orchestra) and op. 56b (two pianos) 1873 12. String Quartet in Bb Major, op. 67/iv 1875 13. Piano Trio in C major, op. 87/ii 1882 14. Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, op. 98/iv 1885 15. String Quintet in G Major, op. 111/ii 1890 16. Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, op. 115/iv 1891 17. Clarinet Sonata in E6 Major, op. 120, no. 2/iii 1894

Table 1 Brahms's Variations.

Once the op. 21 sets are seen as a pair, it becomes clear that they do not repudiate Brahms's earlier variations but rather recast the terms of his engagement with the past: their contrasts in technique and affect reflect different historical models mediated through the nature of their themes.44

Their most significant common features appear in no other independent set by Brahms: minores limited to a single large group, a linking of most of the major variations by melody or speed of figuration, and a finale which includes a reworking of the first variation.45 The greater

sophistication of no. 1 reflects not a development away from no. 2, but a response to its more sophisticated theme, Brahms's first to be com- posed especially for variations.46 Moreover, each set appears to draw on one of the two Beet- hoven sets that Brahms had performed earlier in 1856: no. 2 recalls the C-Minor Variations, WoO 80, with its eight-bar theme and group of opposite mode variations where the theme melody goes into the bass, while no. 1 employs the constant-harmony techniques with only occa- sional melodic references that characterized the Eb-Major "Eroica" set for piano, op. 35. The following brief discussion of both sets is intended to reinforce the idea of pairing.

44Brahms's reflections on the form as well as his composition of op. 21 might also have been stimulated by several performances of variations: in November 1855, he had played Schumann's Variations for Two Pianos, op. 46, with Clara in Danzig, and early in 1856 he played the Beethoven Variations in C minor (WoO 80) and Eb major (op. 35, the "Eroica" or "Prometheus" Variations) in Kiel, Altona, and Cologne. See Florence May, Johannes Brahms, 2 vols. (Lon- don, 1905), I, 192; Renate and Kurt Hofmann, Johannes Brahms: Zeittafel zu Leben und Werk (Tutzing, 1983), pp. 26-32. 45The last feature had appeared in Joachim's Variations in E Major for Viola and Piano, op. 10, completed at the end of 1854.

46The theme of op. 21/1 may even be personally resonant, in its similarity to the slow movement of the D-Minor Piano Concerto, op. 15, a "gentle portrait" of Clara written at precisely the same time (letter of 30 December 1856, Schu- mann-Brahms Briefe I, 198). For a recent interpretation of the concerto movement, see Christopher Reynolds, "A Choral Symphony by Brahms?" this journal 9 (1985), 3-25. Some of the more Sturm und Drang-like variations in op. 21/2 resemble features of the outer movements of the D-Mi- nor Concerto as well.

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The theme in the Hungarian set is immediately countermanded by an initial large group- ing of variations in the minor (variations 1- 6). These flamboyant minores cohere as pairs and small groups based on rhythm while placing the melody either in the bass, the treble, or divided between them. In the original theme set, the minor group (variations 8-10) is the last element before the finale. Striking in both sets are the similar dynamic inflections: minores tend to be loud, maggiores almost invariably soft.

Brahms also linked variations within the major group. In the Hungarian set, the long series of major variations (7-13) connects variations 8 -11 by a pervasive tonic pedal, and variations 9 -13 effect both a dynamic and a rhythmic cre- scendo. Variation 9, a poetic later insertion, is pivotal in altering the metrical pattern of the theme and introducing a new melodic pattern that returns in the bass of variations 10 and 11.47 In the original theme set, the major variations form pairs (1- 2, 3-4, 5-6) in which the second intensifies some aspect of the first.

As a climax to the long chain of variations increasing in speed of figuration, the Allegro finale of the Hungarian set is a rondo whose re- frain, a variation of the theme, gave Brahms a good bit of trouble. In a letter to Joachim, he wrote: "Particularly in the Finale a nasty youth is simply raging, and I'd very much like to fash- ion a more respectable fellow, not raising a racket as sometimes [happened] in the sonatas."48 He also mentions that Clara didn't care for the appearance of Bb minor in the finale, in a section recalling the explosive impact of variation 1. Possibly the criticisms from his friends prompted Brahms to revise the finale, which is written in darker and thicker ink on a different type of paper from the rest of the piece. Such re- visions might have overlapped with the composition of op. 21, no. 1, and accounted for the question mark in Brahms's catalogue ("friiher?"). The finale of the latter set is, by contrast, a kind of expanded variation-as-coda whose con-

tinuing trill and increasing figuration recall Beethoven's E-Major Piano Sonata, op. 109.

VIII Of Brahms's early variations, only the Varia-

tions on a Theme of Schumann, op. 9, his first independent set, lacked a companion piece. Written in 1854 during the period of Brahms's most passionate involvement with the Schu- manns, the piece deserves scrutiny here for its precocious synthesis of variation traditions, as well as for its unique embodiment of a dual persona, an internal pairing, so to speak. The work has garnered considerable attention in the last few years, chiefly from the standpoint of its relationship to Schumann's music and to the Schumanns themselves.49 Resemblances of individual variations to Schumann models have been thoroughly examined, some obvious, some more subtle, and one documented by Brahms himself.50 Both Joachim and Clara, on the other hand, were immediately reminded of Beethoven, the Urkomponist in all of their


47The autograph is in the Vienna Stadtbibliothek. The 6 meter of variation 9 prepares the triplet 24 meter of variation 10, while its chromatic bass line and transitional harmonies under the pedal weld the major group more tightly together. 48Briefwechsel V, 158.

49Constantin Floros, Brahms und Bruckner: Studien zur musikalischen Exegetik (Wiesbaden, 1980), pp. 115-43; Robert Pascall, "Musikalische Einfltisse"; Oliver Neigh- bour, "Brahms and Schumann: Two Opus Nines and Be- yond," this journal 7 (1984), 266-70; Hermann Danuser, "Aspekte einer Hommage-Komposition: Zu Brahms' Schu- mann-Variationen op. 9," in Brahms Analysen, ed. Friedhelm Krummacher and Wolfram Steinbeck, Kieler Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft, vol. 28 (Kassel, 1984), pp. 91-106. Danuser's discussion of the set, the most sensitive yet in print, tries to place it in the context of Brahms's later variations and is especially good on the question of fantasy- variation in op. 9, which he answers in the negative. 501n variation 9, Brahms reworked the second Albumblatt from Schumann's Bunte Bliitter, op. 99 (the first Al- bumblatt serves as the theme of op. 9), so that its interior melody resembled the theme. When a Viennese critic, Karl Debrois van Bruyck, wrote in the Wiener Zeitung of 25 Sep- tember 1857 that in this set, the finest work among Brahms's first ten opera, the most beautiful variation is a strong but certainly not intentional reminiscence of Schu- mann (cited in Kalbeck I, 280), Brahms retorted to Clara that, on the contrary, both intention and connection are ut- terly self-evident, especially since Schumann's piece fol- lows the F#-minor theme directly in the original collection (letter of 11 October 1857, Schumann-Brahms Briefe I, 207- 08). For other Schumann models, see Floros (who argues for the primacy of Davidsbiindlertiinze, op. 6), Neighbour (who argues for Carnaval, op. 9), Pascall, and Danuser, all cited in n. 49; and Michael Musgrave, The Music of Brahms (Lon- don, 1985), pp. 26-27. Apparently unremarked thus far is Brahms's conflation, in his variation 2, of the first variations in Schumann's Impromptus, op. 5, and Symphonic Etudes.

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MUSIC

lives; to be sure, the Beethoven reminiscences are almost as striking as the Schumann ones."5

Brahms's Schumann Variations depart more widely from the structure of the theme than any of his other variation sets, and indeed, most writers have assumed that op. 9 represents the melodic- and fantasy-variation techniques against which he later disciplined himself. But Joachim praised Brahms for concealing his art, especially the disguised ornaments, canons, and contractions and expansions of the bass.52 And the freer variations always retain a striking melodic or harmonic relationship to the theme, with the whole organized according to a synthesis of strict techniques of manipulating melody and bass and of the more subjective psychological bond.

This synthesis is achieved partially by the purposeful association of nearly every variation with a persona: at the close of five variations Brahms extended the double bar out into a "B" for Brahms, while at the close of another five, he extended the bar line into a "Kr" for Johannes Kreisler, a reference to the E. T. A. Hoffmann character he had adopted as a pseudonym and alter ego within his circle of friends.53 The "B" was in fact standard practice in most of Brahms's early pieces, and five autographs be-

tween 1852 and January 1854, for or including piano are signed, in addition to the "B," "[Joh.] Kreisler, jun."54 Thus, op. 9 appears to represent a refinement of this practice for a specific pur- pose. Although Brahms had adopted Kreisler before he knew Schumann, the similarity between this characterization in op. 9 and the "Florestan" and "Eusebius" labels in Schu- mann's Davidsbiindlertiinze, op. 6, surely cannot be coincidental.

The "Brahms" variations are nearly all slow, like the theme, and tend to have a lyrical melody which is sometimes treated in canon, while the "Kreislers" are given quick tempo designa- tions (e.g., "Schnell," "Allegro capriccioso") and feature melodic fragments embedded in figuration. Impetuosity characterizes Kreisler, much as it does Florestan. And the "Kreisler" variations consciously recall Schumann's figural patterns, contain codas, lack canons, and in general depart more strikingly from the theme's structure, harmony, and affect than do most of the "Brahms" variations. Yet neither passion, brilliance, nor homage to Schumann can fully conceal their derivation from the theme.

The harmonic symmetries of Schumann's theme (ex. 5) forecast the ways in which Brahms departs from these harmonies even while retaining the original phrase structure. Of the theme's three eight-measure periods, the first and third consist of two four-measure phrases; those of the first period cadence on F# minor and A major, the third reversing this to cadence on A major and F# minor. In the second period, the harmonic goals are all C#-minor chords, in sec-

51Brahms's variations 7, 15, and 16 recall Beethoven's Diabelli set, variations 13, 8, and 20, respectively, while his varying of theme melody and bass separately has Beetho- ven's Eroica set, op. 35, as its ultimate model, even if filtered through Schumann's Impromptus, op. 5. Joachim's comparison appeared in his letter of 27 June 1854 (Briefwechsel V, 48). Clara simply wrote in her diary that "Beethovensche Geist weht iiber dem Ganzen" (entry of 30 July 1854, Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann. Ein Kiinstlerleben nach Tagebiichern und Briefen, 3 vols. [Leipzig, 1927], II, 323-24, cited in Floros, p. 119). The use of Beethoven as the ultimate touchstone of comparison is ubiquitous in early correspondence of Brahms, Joachim, and Clara Schumann, however. Even for a piece Brahms found not fully satisfac- tory, Joachim's Variations for Viola and Piano, op. 10, he wrote that "no one has yet wielded Beethoven's pen so pow- erfully" (letter of 16 February 1855, Briefwechsel V, 89). Denis Matthews points out that Schumann's F# -minor theme itself bears a striking resemblance to the slow movement of Beethoven's C-Minor Violin Sonata, op. 30, no. 2 (Brahms's Piano Music [Seattle, 1978], p. 26). 52Briefwechsel V, 48-49. 53See Siegfried Kross, "Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann," this journal 5 (1982), 193-200. The autograph of op. 9, dated 15 June 1854 (in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna), consists of the theme and present variations 1- 9 and 12 -16 and shows Brahms's typical early practice of extending the

double bar at the end of each variation into an initial. Varia- tions 10 and 11, inserted on sheets dated 12 August [1854] and headed "Rose and Heliotrope have bloomed," have no such signatures and end with plain double bars. A number of commentators, including Neighbour, have assumed that the "J. B." after the date on the inserted sheets is the same as the extended double bar; this is not so, and variation 11 should not be considered a "B." My thanks to Otto Biba and Peter Riethus for their kindnesses during research trips to Vienna in 1982 and 1984, and to Walter Frisch, who double- checked the double bars in 1986. 54The Kreisler signature is found at the ends of the Piano So- natas, ops. 1, 2, and 5, the Piano Trio, op. 8, and the C-Minor Scherzo (WoO posthum 2) from the F-A-E Piano Trio of October 1853. The autographs are all dated between 1852 and January 1854; see BV under those op. nos.

146

Thema Ziemlich langsam

.

etc.

Example 5: Brahms, Variations on a Theme of Schumann, op. 9, theme.

a. Variation 4 ("B"). Poco pi• moto 3 o

espress. legato

:TYetc.

b. Variation 5 ("Kr"). Allegro capriccioso

staccato e legg. f

Slegg. e stacc etc.

Example 6: Brahms, op. 9.


ond inversion, first inversion, and root position, respectively. In the variations, Brahms alters the harmonies of the static second period most extensively, and he takes advantage of the mir- roring in the third period to offer harmonic substitutions without loss of intelligibility. For example, the third variation slips down a half step from C# to C? at the second C#-minor chord;

the consequent move to F minor continues in the third period.

Comparing the first two "signed" variations (nos. 4 and 5), which are also the only pair related by figuration, proves instructive in assess- ing the differences between "B" and "Kr" (see ex. 6). Variation 4, the first to alter both the melodic and bass lines of the theme, shows Brahms

147

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Theme 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 B Kr Kr B B Kr Kr Kr B B

canon canon canon canon

th. th. th. th. th. th. th.

mel. bass mel. mel. bass mel. bass in (inner (treble in in

bass voice) and treble treble inner (inverted and voice) in bass) bass

Figure 1 Organization of Brahms's Schumann Variations, Op. 9.

asserting his own personality, as a "B," after the reiterations of the theme melody in variations 1 and 3 and the Schumann-reminiscence on the theme bass in variation 2. It recomposes the melody, modifies the harmony by adding pedal points, but remains close to the theme in structure. And despite these new harmonies, notably V7/D in the second period, the pedal points reflect the cadence structure of the theme by spelling out a tonic triad (F# in the first period, A in the second, C# and F# in the third), although with greater emphasis on A than on CQ. They also retrograde the essential melodic outline of the theme (C#-A- F #).

Variation 5, a "Kr," is a fantasylike out- growth of variation 4, using its figuration without the melody, distorting its proportions, altering the harmonies further, and transforming the bell-like repetitions of the initial C# into a fanfare. In contrast to the stable pedals of variation 4, the bass register here is reserved for the ac- cented extremes of the fanfare figuration. These pitches spell out an inversion of the theme's melodic outline (C#-E-G)-a greater depar- ture than a retrograde-then touch on the major dominant (E# as A of C# major) and the major tonic (A# as 3 of F# major). The bass register thus no longer gives chord roots, and the harmonies move farther from the original harmonies than those in variation 4.

Other dynamic, local contrasts animate the set, but the larger organization of the cycle re- volves around Brahms's separate treatment of the theme melody and bass (fig. 1). The theme melody is immediately reinterpreted as a bass line in variation 1, supporting different harmonies and thus sounding like a continuation of the theme on the dominant. Returning as the treble melody in variations 3 and 8, the latter in canon with a middle voice, the theme melody occu- pies both treble and bass registers through a canon in variation 15. The theme bass appears intact in the lowest voice in variation 2 (rhyth- mically altered) and variation 16, and becomes the treble melody in variation 10, accompanied by its own inversion-at first simultaneously, then at a one-measure interval-as a "canon for the eyes."

The cycle is thus weighted at either end by both literal reappearances and functional ex- changes of melody and bass, intensified by stra- tegically placed canons. Articulating the center of the set is variation 8, which restores the theme melody to the highest voice (with a canon), as well as variation 10, which reinter- prets the original bass not only in the treble but also in a new key, D major. In addition, the final variation, where the bass returns to the lowest register but the rest of the theme is only sketched in with a few chords, balances the

148

Un poco piiu animato 7

Ssedcmpress C L A R A

col Ped.

("Siiss--- er Freund")

Example 7: Brahms, op. 9, variation 11.


terse Beethovenian suggestion of the theme in variation 7. "Kreisler" is never the agent of these structural and registral polarities.

While variation 10 can be thus accounted for in the larger organization of the whole, the addition of variations 10 and 11 can be fully under- stood only in their personal references, which make sense of variation 11 for the first time. Variation 9 is the closest association of Kreisler and Florestan in its reworking of Schumann's B- Minor Albumblatt (see n. 49). Oliver Neigh- bour's suggestion that Brahms added variations 10 -11 to correct a "tonal imbalance" in the set because otherwise variation 9 would be the only one in a foreign key, is plausible as far as it goes.55 Variation 10 quotes Clara's Romance (the theme of Schumann's Impromptus, op. 5), enabling Brahms to write to Joachim that in that variation "Clara speaks!"156 The most har- monically ambiguous of all the variations, variation 11 prolongs a dominant pedal and trans- forms the D major of variation 10 into an augmented-sixth chord in F# minor. But more than playing a role in the tonal scheme, it actually presents Brahms's "Clara" theme in its first two measures (ex. 7).57 Variations 9 -11 can thus be seen as three Schumann-derived variations, of which variation 11 uses a private code. After Kreisler impersonates Robert, after Clara

speaks, Brahms himself has the chance to mur- mur her name.58

IX The final part of this essay will suggest that

the idea of the bass, with its elements of strictness, discovery/invention, and psychological bond as explored here, enabled Brahms to re- draw or at least make permeable the boundaries of the variation canon. Two autobiographically resonant movements make this case: the slow movement of the G-Major String Sextet, op. 36, intimately bound up with his relationships to Agathe von Siebold and Clara Schumann, and the slow movement of the G-Major String Quintet, op. 111, originally intended as his farewell to composition. The former is the last of Brahms's variations of 1860-64, a group con- sisting, like the early variations, of three independent sets and two slow movements in works of the same genre. Pairings play out the same oppositions as the earlier works.59 The second

55"Brahms and Schumann," p. 268. 56Briefwechsel V, 59. 57Eric Sams, "Brahms and his Clara themes," Musical Times 112 (1971), 432. Oliver Neighbour describes variation 11 at length, comparing its dominant pedal to "Arlequin" in Schumann's Carnaval. The use of a Clara theme here, given particular prominence by the sudden C , has not to my knowledge been previously identified ("Brahms and Schu- mann," pp. 268-69).

58It is also tempting to see in the left-hand accompaniment an echo of Schumann's motive to "Stisser Freund!" in Frauenliebe und Leben. 59The string sextets are a looser pair than the others in that they were written four years apart, but constitute his only works in that genre and reflect the duality of theme-type already proposed. The slow movement of the B -Major String Sextet, op. 18, suggests older models at the outset, in a theme that recalls both the old bass pattern of La Folia, with its "strumming" accompaniment, and the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Its treatment similarly ex- pands register while decreasing note values in the first three variations, and the format of the movement is traditional. Finally, the coda refers to the variation-finale of Mozart's D- Minor String Quartet, K. 421, and the slow movement of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" Quartet. (James Web- ster called attention to the Schubert reminiscence in "Brahms's First Maturity [II]," p. 62. It is possible that Schu- bert's quartet already reflected the Mozart.)

149

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC Adagio rit.

Vn. I

Vn. 2 L" -I

molto espr . . Vla.

3

Example 8: Brahms, String Sextet in G major, op. 36, mvt. III, theme.

falls among the later variations, where there is a sudden preponderance of variation finales that tend to unify and give cyclic focus to the whole work. In these movements, Brahms turned his impulse toward paired conceptions into a similar one linking first movements with finales.60

The slow movement of the sextet uses a floating, chromatic theme (ex. 8) written six months after op. 9: Brahms dedicated it to Clara in a little pocket notebook of Christmas Eve 1854 and then copied it into a letter he sent her two months later.61 The rest of the sextet was written in 1864-65 in the wake of Brahms's af- fair with Agathe von Siebold; the use of a theme associated with Clara might have helped in bid- ding Agathe farewell.62 Hanslick was moved to call the movement "a type of free variations on no theme."63 The theme's principal characteristics-fluctuations of major and minor, an opening sequence on I and 6 VII, ethereal tone color, and especially the curiously yearning opposi- tion between rising fourths and descending

chromatic figures-can be treated strictly and yet suggest fantasy. Those elements are elaborated in the series of paired variations (1- 2, 3- 4), without clear melodic identification of the variations with the theme until the serene final maggiore and coda.64 The empty bass register in the theme, however, has profound conse- quences: it means that Brahms must literally discover the bass in the melody instead of the other way round. In fact, Brahms reinvents the bass in every variation.

Like the first variation in op. 9, the first here sounds more like a continuation of the theme than a variation of it (ex. 9). Now augmented, the descending chromatic line of the accompa- nying voices becomes the melodic line, while two inner voices present the ascending fourth line in diminution, pizzicato. Through simulta- neous augmentation and diminution and the addition of a new bass line, the theme appears to recede. Also concealing a connection to the theme is the second variation, with pervasive chromatic neighbor-note and passing-tone motives that vary the viola line of the theme.

Variations 3 and 4, both faster, louder, and imitative, suggest, through the opposed direc- tions of the imitated octave-figure (rising in variation 3, falling in variation 4), the simultane-

60The literal returns of the opening movement's first theme in the finales of op. 67 and op. 115, and the more veiled return of the descending thirds of the first movement in the finale of op. 98, are only the most obvious of these. In addition, the slow movement of op. 87 separates the twin melodies of the theme, associated with piano and violin, and var- ies them in turn. These works, together with the Haydn Variations and their passacaglia-finale, are the subject of a separate study. 61Schumann-Brahms Briefe I, 75. He described it as a "Lied oder eine Melodie statt Worte.... Es sagt immer mehr als meine Worte." The notebook is in the Stadtbibliothek, Vi- enna; only the first page, with inscription and theme, contains writing. 62As Kalbeck points out, the letters of Agathe's name form part of several themes in the first movement (Brahms II, 157). 63Hanslick, "Aus dem Konzertsaal," cited by Kalbeck, Brahms II, 161.

640f the two Paganini sets, op. 35, book 1 contains a preponderance of variations with melodic and harmonic resemblance to the theme, as well as Baroque topics like the descending-tetrachord chaconne bass (variation 4) and quasi musette (variation 11), while the variations in book 2 immediately reinterpret the theme's harmonies, even at cadence points, and contain the variation most remote from the theme in either set (variation 12, an Andante in F major). It is notable that each of the "stricter" members of the pairs in this period (ops. 18, 24, and 35/1) contains a musette (variations 22, 5, and 11, respectively).

150

Vn. I, via. I

, ' I - .fL . J.. Vla. I molto

I

p pzz. Vc. I PI

vc.II

Example 9: Brahms, op. 36, mvt. III, variation 1.

Adagio

p izz. I I

P dolce arco

pz zz.%p z.

pizz.

arco

p'l'lp04


Example 10: Brahms, op. 36, mvt. III, variation 5.

ously rising fourth and falling chromatic lines in the theme's first phrase, now played out over a two-variation span. In the melodically oriented final maggiore (ex. 10), Brahms replaces conventional melodic-outline procedures with embellishments based on a diminution of the theme's rising fourth, which are then radiated throughout the texture. The coda resolves all

ambiguities, its tonic pedal anchoring the con- stantly reiterated rising fourth to a new stable environment. Brahms here arrives at a reconciliation of variation and fantasy, as well as an ap- parent resolution of his yearning for Clara that he was simply not capable of nine years earlier.

If the sextet variations disclose strict treatment of a free theme, and flirt with fantasy in

151

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Vn. I, II

f aa /-5~?dolre

Vla. I

la.

,. ;-.

o T"I._.

Vc.

pizz.. . arco

p- M %Idim.A

" •~ .,p ..

3

.

dim.

33

LI"o Pf 24 1 f 0 Arn FR

r r

3

Example 11: Brahms, String Quintet in G major, op. 111, mvt. II.

the absence of a strongly profiled theme bass, the slow movement of the much later G-Major String Quintet, actually embodies all the issues involved in fantasy-variation, and does so without ever disturbing the shade of Schumann. Even its precedents are to be found in the fantasia literature: both the slow Fantasia movement of Haydn's late El-Major String Quartet, op. 76, no. 6, and the slow variation movement in Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy present a short theme successively in several keys, connecting each statement with free or improvisatory passages. In op. 111, the theme is an eight-measure phrase in flight from its tonic, D minor (ex. 11). The idea of the bass exemplifies this notion. Three variant versions of that phrase alter scor- ing and accompaniment; the first and third of these also expand the harmony and phrase structure, and the second changes the tonic (G minor). This simple theme is also Brahms's

only theme for variations in which the bass par- ticipates motivically, in the dotted-rhythm motives of m. 3 and mm. 5-6.

The real freedom in the movement lies in the improvisatory passages which link one variation to the next. These passages are based on motives of the theme--the dotted rhythm of m. 1 or its melodic contour, the ascending bass ar- peggio of m. 3, the triplet-figure and neighbor- note motive of m. 7--and every one of them begins simply and grows in rhythmic or textural complexity. They also increase in length and in expressive intensity until the climax of the set in the variation which begins in D major (ex. 12). This variation, with the greatest range, den- sity, and volume, imports the techniques of those improvisatory passages into the variation itself, forcing an extension outward, via pro- gressive diminution (sixteenths and sixteenth- triplets to thirty-seconds), into a kind of moti-

152

M - 161-u -

Sarco f

fY--• ff

ffr ff2w

Example 12: Brahms, op. 111, mvt. II, variation 3.


vic apotheosis. Because the variation has expanded, the subsequent transition contracts into a viola cadenza. The final partial reprise avoids any hint of the theme's propulsive arpeg- gios but paradoxically echoes the G-minor variation at the cadence. In op. 111, then, a work which he thought might be the fitting conclu- sion to his compositional life, Brahms created as a final synthesis a stable treatment of the bass together with motivic fantasy-variation.

Every time Brahms was moved to describe the history and basic principles of variation form, he upheld older techniques over modern ones and decried excessive reliance on the theme's melody. Yet Brahms the composer never actively repudiated any of the variation techniques that Brahms the critic seemed to de- plore. His vaguely defined notion of "fantasy- variation" as a refuge of lesser Schumann-imitators who could only belabor their theme's

melody and distort its structure aided his attempt to establish a canon of true variations, but his freedom in interpreting "the bass" al- lowed him not only to create something new upon it but also to recreate that bass anew, lead- ing him to the verge of fantasy as described by Schumann and Schaiffer. While his variations after op. 9 were all "stricter and purer" in holding more closely to the structure of the theme, the nature of his variation themes still conditioned the nature of the set, and the pairing of radically different themes from op. 21 through op. 36 provided the means for a thorough exploration of his extensive inheritance and an expansion of its boundaries. Brahms's poetic reflection on the theme bass-"the firm foundation on which I then build my stories"-shows him to be at once an architect and a teller of tales, in- fusing each edifice with an animating spirit.

153

Documents

Brahms and the Variation Canon