Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period, born on May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany. He passed away on April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). Brahms is often grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the “Three Bs” of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms’s music includes symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, choral compositions, and over 200 songs. His style is deeply rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters, yet his music also embodies deeply Romantic motifs. While some contemporaries found his music to be overly academic, his craftsmanship was admired by later figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar.< His life began in a Lutheran family, and his father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was a musician who found work as a jobbing musician and a string and wind player in Hamburg. Johannes showed early promise as a pianist and first studied music with his father. At age seven, he was sent for piano lessons to F.W. Cossel, who three years later passed him to his own teacher, Eduard Marxsen. Between ages 14 and 16, Brahms helped support his family by playing in inns in the dock area of Hamburg, while also composing and sometimes giving recitals. In 1850, he met Eduard Reményi, a Jewish Hungarian violinist, with whom he gave concerts and from whom he learned something of Roma music—an influence that remained with him always. The turning point in his career came in 1853 when he met the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, who instantly recognized Brahms’s talent. Joachim introduced him to composer Robert Schumann, and this connection led to Brahms’s music being published and gaining recognition Brahms was a virtuoso pianist who premiered many of his own works. He worked with leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim, the latter being a close friend. His works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire, and his influence on music has been profound, with his detailed construction of works serving as a starting point and inspiration for a generation of composers.

The story of the origins of the Variations op. 21 is typical on the whole for the evolution of a composition by Brahms from inception… to printing status. Brahms wrote the pieces in 1853/54 (Variations on a Hungarian Song) and 1857 (Variations on an Original Theme). Then he sought the advice of his friend Joseph Joachim, who suggested that Brahms put the Hungarian Variations aside “for a while.” It was not until July 1861 – and perhaps after comprehensive revisions – that Brahms sent both variation cycles to his publisher Simrock.