Hungarian music aficionados might recall the name Hans Koessler as a teacher of Béla Bartók, Ernő Dohnányi, Zoltán Kodály and other renowned Hungarian composers. His work as a composer is much less known, even though his Symphonic Variations were performed, during his lifetime, both in the leading music centres of Europe and in America.

Dedicated “to the spirit of Johannes Brahms”, the Symphonic Variations can be regarded as a portrait of the great German composer from Koessler’s perspective. The composer originally intended to give titles to the different passages of this orchestral work comprising the theme and its seven variations, but these ended up being omitted from the score. Nevertheless, the music itself can help to elucidate the hidden programme.  In the initial variations, Koessler gives voice to his sadness over Brahms’s death and evokes their first encounter, which took place in Budapest. He then goes on to reminisce about him as a friend, and finally, in an almost acknowledged imitation of his style, pays tribute to the memory of the great German master