Now a permanent resident of Vienna, Brahms spent his summer holiday in
1873 at Tutzing on the Starnbergersee in southern Bavaria. A version of
the Variations for two pianos Brahms marked "Tutzing, July, 1873."
Whether it was the first of the two versions we do not know. On November
2 the orchestral version was brought out in Vienna at a Philharmonic
Concert, Otto Dessoff conducting.
The theme by Haydn comes from an unpublished divertimento for wind
instruments, preserved at the State Library in Berlin, which is
inscribed "Divertimento mit dem Chorale St. Antoni." Though the melody
of the chorale is usually supposed to be Haydn's own, we cannot be sure
that he had not taken it from a chorale that has now disappeared.