Johannes Brahms wrote his Variations on a theme by Schumann in 1854 and dedicated the work to Clara Schumann. The work was published the same year by Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig, but the first evidence of a performance is from 1879 in Berlin. The theme (in F# minor) comes from the fourth piece of the piano cycle Bunte Blätter, Op.99. The Variations take about 18 minutes to perform.
