Variationen über ein Thema von Joseph Haydn by Johannes Brahms
Arranged for Piano, Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, and Bassoon by John W. Pratt (originally for two pianos or orchestra)
Piano Score and Parts for Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet and Bassoon, PDF $26.99
Johannes Brahms completed composition of his Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn in 1873. He wrote two versions of the work, one for two pianos, the other for orchestra. The two-piano version, written first, is not a piano reduction of the orchestral version, nor is the latter an orchestration of the former. When Brahms planned an orchestral work, he often wrote piano sketches first, but this is the only one he published separately, with its own opus number. Clearly he valued it as an independent piece, perhaps because (as the performance on YouTube by Lupu and Perahia shows) much of it has a lightness, charm, and wit unachievable by a full orchestra. The purpose of this arrangement, like our arrangement of Brahms's Opus 23 for the same instrumentation, is to create a chamber music version of some wonderful music combining much of the lightness of the piano version with a WW4’s contrasting and beautiful sonorities. Much of the piano part is drawn directly from Brahms’s piano parts. The wind parts, of course, draw mostly on the orchestral version, but with nowhere near as much doubling. —adapted from JWP’s © foreword to the edition)
Score, 44 pages; Parts, 9 pages each; Total, 86 pages.
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