Editing Variations on a Theme by Haydn (section)

==Origin of the theme==
[[File:Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen.pdf|right|300px|page=102]]

Brahms composed the work on a theme entitled "Chorale St. Antoni", which Brahms found in a [[wind ensemble]] composition. When Brahms discovered it, the wind ensemble piece carried an attribution to the composer [[Joseph Haydn]]. Brahms titled his own composition accordingly, crediting Haydn for the theme. However, music publishers in the early nineteenth century often attached the names of famous composers to works by unknown or lesser-known composers, to make the pieces more saleable. Subsequent research has concluded that the wind piece Brahms used as a source does not fit Haydn's style. The wind ensemble piece remains without clear attribution.

As a result, Brahms's piece is sometimes referred to today, in recordings and concert programs, as the ''St. Anthony Variations'' or ''Variations on the St. Anthony Chorale'', in addition to the original title that Brahms gave it.

A detailed survey of the controversy can be found in Douglas Yeo's 2004 edition of the "Haydn" piece (ISMN M-57015-175-1).<ref>{{cite web |first=Douglas |last=Yeo |title=Divertimento [Feldparthie] in B-flat [St. Antoni Chorale], Hob. 2:46 |url=http://www.yeodoug.com/publications/le_monde_du_serpent/le_monde_du_serpent_notes.html |publisher=yeodoug.com |year=2013 |access-date=November 9, 2013}}</ref> In 1870, Brahms's friend Carl Ferdinand Pohl, the librarian of the [[Vienna Philharmonic Society]], who was working on a Haydn biography at the time, showed Brahms a transcription he had made of a piece attributed to Haydn titled "Divertimento No. 1". The second movement bore the heading "St. Anthony Chorale", and it is this movement which provides the theme on which the variations are based. Brahms's statement of the theme varies in small but significant ways from the original, principally with regard to instrumentation. 

Some sources state the Divertimento was probably written by [[Ignaz Pleyel]], but this has not been definitively established. A further question is whether the composer of the divertimento actually wrote the "St. Anthony Chorale" or simply quoted an older theme taken from an unknown source. To date, no other mention of a "St. Anthony Chorale" has been found.