Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op 24 are piano works of Johannes Brahms.

Importance

With 28 years of Brahms wrote the Handel Variations in September 1861 in Hamburg -Hamm. They are the most important of its five variations Works for Piano 2 hands and place him as the master of this genus between Beethoven and Max Reger. Uniquely, the work combines Baroque music with music of high romance. It contains a Siciliano, a musette, two canons and - of course - a joint. As Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, Op 24 belongs to the most important piano works. Apart from the technical challenges is at play probably the biggest difficulty is to find the "right" speed of all parts and keep them in balance. Everything leads to the majestic and strict final fugue.

Significant in several respects is the dedicatee - Clara Schumann, the 43- year-old widow of Robert Schumann. The autograph bears the dedication variations for a dear friend.

"I have you some variations on your birthday, you've still not heard, and which you have long had the opportunity to practice for your gigs. "

Before the plant in July 1862 was published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Brahms put it on November 4, 1861 in front of a Hamburg-based private circle. Also in Hamburg, playing Clara Schumann December 7 - disappointed by Brahms ' apathy. Brahms himself conducted it until 1869 or eleven times to, among other things, in Oldenburg ( Oldenburg), Vienna, Zurich, Budapest, Dresden and Copenhagen. The only personal encounter with Richard Wagner in his Vienna apartment on 6 February 1864, he played it at the request of Wagner. After Max Kalbeck said Wagner:

" You see what can afford in the old forms even if someone comes who understands them to deal with. "

Brahms and Handel

With works by George Frideric Handel Brahms was probably already as a student of Willibald Cossel and Eduard Marxsen in touch. Unlike Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner he wanted to hold on to traditional forms. After Gustav Jenner he loved the term " permanent music." So he studied in the 1850s with the traditional composition techniques and especially with the counterpoint. On the 34th Lower Rhine Music Festival ( Dusseldorf 1856) he heard Handel's Alexander's Feast. The first major work in the Princely Residence Castle Detmold he brought on December 30, 1858 Handel's Messiah to the performance. According to the Bach-Gesellschaft Leipzig Georg Friedrich Handel Society was founded in Halle ( Saale) in 1856. With its protagonists Philipp Spitta and Friedrich Chrysander Brahms was on friendly terms for many years. He took an active part in the creation of Bach and Handel's total expenditure, which he - alongside those of Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann and Heinrich Schütz - collected in his Vienna library. He also transcribed two series of chamber duets by Handel discovered the Chrysander and had planned for publication in his monumental Handel Edition.

Construction

Like the Aria are the most variations and fugue in B flat major and in 4/4-time. Unlike the Diabelli Variations (and the Symphonic Etudes ) remain the variations in the vicinity of the subject.

Aria

The theme is the Aria of variations of the Suite in B flat major from 1733 in England published a pirated version 2 collection of Georg Friedrich Handel's Suites de pièces pour le clavecin, Handel - Werke-Verzeichnis 434 Brahms had found in an antiquarian acquired note printing. The theme is the old rule of two to four clocks, but is basically a repeated eight times, slightly different twist.

Variations

His friend Adolf Schubring, Brahms wrote on February 16, 1869

" When a subject to variations me actually, almost, almost only the bass means something. But this is sacred to me, he is the solid foundation on which I will build my stories. What do I do with the melody, is only playing or witty -. Gimmick "

"Even the fugue theme is a variation of the Handel theme; for each first notes of the four quarters (b, c, d, es) of the fugue theme correspond to the determined melody tones of Handel's theme. The figure previously used in the variations of the 3rd quarter in the main theme is found as the 2nd quarter in the 2nd cycle of the fugue subject again. The joint itself is unusually powerful fashion, free under construction, in detail, however, strictly. The sound Mighty manifests itself among other things in the third, sixths, octaves and sixth - octave passages as well as in manifold chords. The severity revealed continued in the use of inversions, enlargements, coupling of the basic motif with its converse, simultaneity of several motives or its inverse and such. Sound power and sentence severity lead especially in the organ point-like final climax to great effects, especially where, after preparation ( " pedal point " in the high f) the deep F is struck again and again, fold in the middle voice the subject and the reversal and the dissenting voice in octaves falls down from on high. "