The great music writer Donald Tovey has ranked it among "the half-dozen greatest sets of variations ever written". Biographer Jan Swafford describes the Handel Variations as "perhaps the finest set of piano variations since Beethoven", adding, "Besides a masterful unfolding of ideas concluding with an exuberant fugue with a finish designed to bring down the house, the work is quintessentially Brahms in other ways: the filler of traditional forms with fresh energy and imagination; the historical eclectic able to start off with a gallant little tune of Handel's, Baroque ornaments and all, and integrate it seamlessly into his own voice, in a work of massive scope and dazzling variety."
| Date of composition | 1861 |
| Premiered | 1861, December 7th in Hamburg, Germany by Clara Schumann (Wieck) |
| First published | 1862, Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Germany |
| Type | Theme and variations |
| Catalogue | Op. 24 |
| Approx. duration | 27 minutes |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Autotranslations beta |
Johannes Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 Johannes Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 Johannes Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 |
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