The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work—a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude. “I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues,” Brad says of the piece, which combines the classical form with jazz harmonies. “While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress.”