[f. as prec. + -IST.] a. One who professes evolutionary variation. b. One who composes musical variations.
a. 1878. W. H. Rider, in Spirit of Democracy, 19 Feb., 1/4. The first fallacy of the variationist is that these minute differentiations will tend upward toward the higher forms of life and to man.
b. 1901. J. Huneker, Mezzotints Mod. Music, 35. Brahms … is not only the greatest variationist of his times, but with Bach and Beethoven the greatest of all times.
