Variations on a Theme of Brahms, Op. 23

Apart from a few actual students, Brahms offered general musical advice to a small coterie of friends and followers. Such was the case of Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Herzogenberg and Brahms’ relationship with him parallel the latter’s contact with Robert Schumann years earlier. In the early 1850s Schumann famously trumpeted young Brahms as the savior of music. But in the process of their growing friendship, Brahms fell in love with Schumann’s wife, Clara, making for a sometimes tense situation between Brahms and his mentor/rival. Similarly, Herzogenberg married a beautiful young piano student of Brahms’, Elisabeth von Stockhausen, for whom the composer had largely unexpressed amorous feelings. Brahms never quite accepted Herzogenberg’s own skill as a composer, even when the younger man presented his Variations on a Theme of Brahms in 1876. The Variations echo Brahms’ own lush piano style and bears direct comparison to the master’s “Haydn” Variations (1873). But the conviction with which Herzogenberg carries through his homage makes it a remarkable and successful piece in its own right. The theme sets a devotional tone that Herzogenberg exploits for the first variations. Later variations move briefly to the major mode. The tragic tone captured in the original folk poem, which Brahms had set in his song “Die Trauernde” (“The Sad Maiden”), motivates Herzogenberg’s prevailing somber approach, only transcended at the last in a quiet, restful coda. Despite their unspoken rivalry for Elisabeth’s affections, Brahms deeply valued Herzogenberg’s friendship. The correspondence of all three reveals a private side of Brahms that would otherwise remain invisible.

(c) Jason Stell