Article: Brahms's Variations on a Hungarian Song, op. 21, no. 2: "Betrachte dann die Beethovenschen und, wenn Du willst, meine".(Critical Essay)

Among all the tools we have to understand Brahms as a variation composer, the most important is the music itself. In this context, his Variations on a Hungarian Song, op. 21, no. 2, has been woefully underexplored--and this despite a tantalizing array of unica.(1) It is Brahms's only freestanding variation set based on a folk melody. It presents unique evidence of how the young Brahms struggled to impose macroformal order on a large variation group. Its brilliant coda is Brahms's first known encounter with the variation finale. It is also Brahms's first thoroughgoing attempt to employ the Hungarian idioms for which he was later to become celebrated.(2) Furthermore, the ...

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