Variations on a Theme by Haydn, op. 56a

Carl Ferdinand Pohl, librarian of the Vienna Philharmonic Society and Haydn's biographer, showed Brahms a copy of a wind octet found at Zittau and catalogued as Divertimento no. 1. Its second movement, the Chorale St Antoni, became the theme. Brahms wrote the variations at Tutzing in the summer of 1873, first for two pianos and then at once for orchestra; he conducted the premiere in Vienna on 2 November 1873. The Haydn attribution has not survived scholarly scrutiny, and the work is now often listed under the alternative title St Antoni Variations.