{"id":455,"date":"2012-08-06T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=455"},"modified":"2015-06-18T15:14:16","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T13:14:16","slug":"%e2%80%98play-it-again%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-is-a-repeat-sign-missing-in-brahms%e2%80%99-paganini-variations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2012\/08\/06\/%e2%80%98play-it-again%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-is-a-repeat-sign-missing-in-brahms%e2%80%99-paganini-variations\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Play it again\u2019 \u2013 is a repeat sign missing in Brahms\u2019 Paganini Variations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time ago we received an interesting query from a pianist who had come across something formally odd in Johannes Brahms\u2019 Variationen \u00fcber ein Thema von Paganini<\/em> op. 35. As we know, Brahms too was inspired by Nicol\u00f2 Paganini\u2019s 24 Capricci<\/em> op. 1 for violin solo, as were already earlier Schumann and Liszt. He composed a cycle of 28 highly virtuosic variations (in 2 volumes of 14 numbers each) on the well-known a-minor theme from Capriccio no. 24 \u2013 here in Brahms\u2019 piano version:
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\nIn analyzing the theme formally, we can spot a very clear subdivision into 2\u00d74 + 2\u00d78 measures. Now, in his opus 35 Brahms follows this default almost like a formula and in all variations faithfully maintains the structural model of the theme (often writing out the repeats and applying in the process minor variants, such as using octaves, alternating figuration in right and left hands). Only in each of the last variations functioning as longer codas to volumes 1 and 2 is something of an exception made, though even here the usual \u20188+16\u2019 division is clearly evident.<\/p>\n

Yet there is a method to this \u2018schematic madness\u2019: within this strictly delineated formal framework Brahms is ever exemplarily dealing with a special challenge to playing technique that lends the variations an etude-like character \u2013 not by chance did the original title of the first edition read: \u2018Studies<\/strong> for Pianoforte | Variations on a Theme by Paganini\u2019. The editor of our Urtext edition (HN 394<\/a>), Hans Kann, speaks in his preface of a \u2018wide range of pianistic devices, probing all the difficulties of leaps, double chords, polyrhythmic combinations, and many other problems. Each variation concentrates on a particular technical difficulty, approached almost in the manner of a finger exercise.\u2019 Brahms, according to his biographer Max Kalbeck, was even said to have joked about the work: \u2018Here are my finger exercises!\u2019<\/p>\n

So everything would seem to be clear and in the best of order \u2013 but for the 6th<\/sup> variation in volume 2\u2026. Here is the complete music example (the last note is already the upbeat to the 7th<\/sup> variation):
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\nHere we see a marked divergence from the schema described above: for symmetry shouldn\u2019t there be a repeat sign after the first four measures?<\/p>\n

This stands to reason; however, the sources are not accommodating in the matter. Serving as the main source of our edition is Brahms\u2019 personal copy of the first edition with autograph corrections and entries. To this is added the engraver\u2019s model he thoroughly revised. Then for some time now, the autograph long regarded as lost can again also be consulted in the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. Thus, the source situation is very good and reliable in content, and the findings unanimous: nowhere<\/em> is there a repeat sign in this variation after the 4th<\/sup> measure. The corresponding page of the first edition<\/a> can be viewed in the digital archives of the Brahms-Institut L\u00fcbeck. The following illustration shows in the autograph the passage where Brahms opens the repeat bracket explicitly only to the right for the 2nd<\/sup> part (the cancelled notes already belong to m. 5; here for lack of space he broke off, to begin again in the next line):
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\nCourtesy of The National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg<\/span><\/p>\n

So it can only be sheer speculation that this could have been a series of errors. From the autograph we can at least conclude that originally this 6th<\/sup> variation was not even part of the cycle (following on the 5th<\/sup> variation was the present 7th<\/sup> variation) and was notated only later (with a different pen in different ink) on the last page of the music book. Could it have been a spontaneous afterthought where Brahms already forgot his original formal structure\u2026? Improbable, if we consider how frequently he played \u2013 even publicly \u2013 his own work. Furthermore, he is known as a careful proofreader, and he had only just added a comment on the correct direction of stemming (\u2018Stem the appoggiaturas consistently downwards, the large notes upwards.\u2019) in the 6th<\/sup> variation of the engraver\u2019s model. While doing this wouldn\u2019t he finally have also noticed the repeat \u2018lapse\u2019? Even Eusebius Mandyczewski, Brahms\u2019 close friend and editor of the first Brahms Complete Edition who consulted these sources in 1927 for volume 13 of the edition, did not see any reason to question the original notation or at the very least to comment in the editorial report:
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How should this then be resolved? On this question music practice seems to agree that those 4 measures are to be repeated. The pianist and Brahms scholar Detlef Kraus commented on this passage: \u2018For reasons of formal balance I repeat the 1st<\/sup> half of the 6th<\/sup> variation. Otherwise it would only be altogether too brief.\u2019 (Johannes Brahms als Klavierkomponist<\/em>, Wilhelmshaven, 1986, p. 67). Also, in the following selection of recorded examples all the pianists repeat the first 4 measures (all examples start directly with variation 6).<\/p>\n