Joseph Haydn
Variations

About Joseph Haydn's Variations

Of Haydn’s Variation works for piano, the F minor Andante with Variations is by far the most interesting; in fact, it stands out as one of his greatest works for piano. It is a set of double variations on a pair of alternating themes, one in F minor and one in F major. The theme in minor is a modified version of a phrase from the final aria from Haydn’s Opera L´anima del filosofo (The Spirit of the Philosopher), in which the inconsolable Orpheus, having lost his Eurydice, yearns for death. Some take this as an indication that Haydn intended the variations as a tacit commemoration to his last great love, Maria Anna von Genzinger – they were composed shortly after her death early in 1793.