This program note originally appeared in The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Centennial Collection (Historic Broadcasts and Recordings from 1917-1998). VARIATIONS ON A THEME OF JOSEPH HAYDN, OP. 56A COMPOSED IN 1873 JOHANNES BRAHMS BORN IN HAMBURG, MAY 7, 1833 DIED IN VIENNA, APRIL 3, 1897 Brahms, the Romantic classicist, firmly stood up to the Liszt-Wagner camp of his day by writing symphonies in four distinct movements (emphasizing polyphony in his outer movements, and with the slow movement second) instead of symphonic poems or programmatic symphonies with linked movements advocated by the progressives. Even in his instrumentation he adhered to the Classical orchestra with double woodwinds rather than embrace the harps, percussion, and other piquant colors preferred by modernists. Moreover, he was virtually alone among major composers of his day in his interest in musicology and early music, keeping closely in touch with eminent scholars of the day with professional erudition and confidence. As a child Brahms had spent hours in the Hamburg city library poring through old manuscripts and theoretical works, and as an adult his professional income allowed him to amass a fine library of rare and important scores and treatises, including autograph manuscripts by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann. Evidence of his particular affinity for Haydn dates to the 1850s when he wrote to Clara Schumann of his immense enjoyment of playing through Haydn’s piano trios as duets with his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Some time afterward, his friend Carl Pohl, a pioneer Haydn scholar, introduced Brahms to much more of Haydn’s vast legacy, most of it generally ignored at the time. One piece was a Divertimento then attributed to Haydn, which incorporated a traditional melody known as “St. Anthony’s Chorale.” In 1873 Brahms was working on his long anticipated First Symphony (begun cautiously in 1855), and still uncertain of his orchestral skill, he decided to practice his vocabulary of instrumental effects by composing a set of variations on “St. Anthony’s Chorale.” He also wished to honor Haydn’s memory by using the tune, and by emulating Haydn’s own variations in the original Divertimento. At least he assumed it was Haydn’s work; long after Brahms’s death, musicologists re-attributed the Divertimento to Ignace Pleyel (1757-1831), and because the tune itself is traditional, Brahms’s work is often referred to as the St. Anthony Variations. After the gentle statement of the theme, with its almost poignant oboe coloration, Brahms presents eight variations. The first five gradually build tension, which is released in the sixth Variation (Vivace) with its rushing winds and brass. The siciliano of Variation VII provides a symphonic slow movement, for contrast, while the final variation and coda bring the work to a majestic conclusion. Ever since Carl Pohlig conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra premiere in 1907, Brahms’s Haydn Variations have been a regular part of the Orchestra’s repertoire, and this performance under Maestro Sawallisch was part of a “Brahms Perspectives” Festival
commemorating the centenary of the composer’s death. At once so richly sonorous and lucid in its contrapuntal textures, the rendition moved critic Dick Saunders (The Main Line Times) to write that he would remember it “for years to come.” The score was “expertly scaled by Sawallisch, as you would expect, but so much more than that,” he continued. “The familiar music seemed to leap off the stage, bursting with life. When you hear a performance like that, discussions of technique are beside the point.” —Barrymore Laurence Scherer Program note © 1999. All rights reserved. Program note may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.
