Historical and Analytical Aspects of the Style Hongrois with Special Emphasis on the Piano Music of Johannes Brahms Introduction The focus of this essay is Brahms's use of the so-called style hongrois in his piano music. Style hongrois is a problematic concept, because the real practitioners of the style were not ethnic Hungarians but rather Hungarian Gypsies. The style hongrois denotes both a repertory and a performance tradition, wherein Gypsy musicians freely incorporated outside influences into their own music. Moreover, composers such as Brahms adapted features of the style to their own creative ends. In order to better define Brahms's style hongrois, then, I shall compare it with that of earlier composers - Haydn, Schubert, Liszt - and offer biographical and analytical evidence for such definition. Although Brahms's Gypsy style has been well researched with respect to his ensemble music, the same cannot be said about the piano works. One does find some precedents, however. In the early part of this century, Walter Niemann noted that the thirteenth variation (B-flat minor) of Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel suggests a brooding Hungarian lassan. And Jonathan Bellman, developing Niemann's idea, has recently proposed that the thirteenth and fourteenth variations, taken together, form a miniature csárdás within the work as a whole. Using these and similar studies as my starting point, I shall revisit aspects of Brahm's style hongrois thus far unexplored. I have set before me three analytical tasks: to outline the elements of the style hongrois, including instrumental figuration, harmonic moves unique to Gypsy improvisational style, and rhythmic liberties taken by Gypsy performers; to extract and classify several representative passages from Brahms's piano oeuvre, according to his mode of stylistic integration; to compare Brahms's style hongrois to that of the above named composers, with special attention to his "developing variation technique." My goals are (a) to trace the sources of Brahms's style hongrois, and (b) to codify relationships between Hungarian Gypsy music and its evocation in his piano works.