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World Premiere of the Unfinished Variations 14

Emanuele Stracchi – Young Artists Piano Solo Series 2020–2021
Teatro Palladium – Rome
Tuesday, 29 December at 9:30 PM

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 9:30 PM, a concert was held at the Teatro Palladium in Rome as part of the “Young Artists Piano Solo Series 2020–2021,” streamed live on the Roma Tre Orchestra Facebook page. It was the 484th concert since the foundation. At the piano was Maestro Emanuele Stracchi, collaborator of the Music Research Centre (www.lvbeethoven.org). The programme included:

  • J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in D major (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I), BWV 850
  • L. v. Beethoven: Variations in A major, Unv. 14 (reconstruction by Graziano Denini, world premiere)
  • J. S. Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903
  • L. v. Beethoven: Rondo in A major, WoO 49
  • B. Bartók: Suite, Op. 14 (Allegretto, Scherzo, Allegro Molto, Sostenuto)
  • L. v. Beethoven: Rondo a Capriccio, Op. 129

Sketched at the end of 1794 or the beginning of 1795, the drafts of the variations are contained on three pages of the Fischhof sketchbook, probably comprising a theme, eight variations, and a coda. On folio 25 recto of the sketchbook, immediately after the variations, there is a brief draft for the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A major, Op. 2 No. 2; this has also led to the suggestion that Beethoven may have considered a set of variations as a finale for this sonata. Both this hypothesis and the idea of an independent set of variations remain plausible.

Further variations in A major, therefore in the same key and with the same tempo indication, are found in the “Kafka” miscellany (GB-Lhl, Add. Ms. 29801, Bl. 158v), although these probably refer to “La ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, which is certainly not the subject of the variations in the Fischhof sketchbook.

All details of this work, its reconstruction, and the process leading to the world premiere are contained on our page:

Unvollendete 14 – Fragment of Variations for Piano

All concert videos are available on the YouTube channel of

The Unvollendete 14 Variations are part of the project “Research Becomes Art.”

A New Life for the Unknown Works of Ludwig van Beethoven: An Artistic Exploration by Maestro Emanuele Stracchi

Born in 1990, he is a pianist, composer, and conductor. Graduating cum laude in Piano and Composition, he studied at the “Briccialdi” Higher Institute in Terni and the “Santa Cecilia” Conservatoire in Rome, subsequently obtaining a Second-Level Diploma cum laude in Musical Disciplines, with a thesis on György Ligeti (Experimental Biennium).

He has recently recorded Contemporary Piano Works for the Diapason label, available on iTunes and Spotify. A student of Guaitoli, he further refined his studies with Marvulli, Micheletti, and Bellocchio; he has studied Orchestra Conducting and Gregorian Chant, and at the prestigious Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena he studied with the renowned pianist Lilya Zilberstein.

He graduated cum laude in Philosophy at Roma Tre University (thesis in History of Medieval Philosophy, supervised by Prof. Benedetto Ippolito) and is the author of several musicological publications. Some of his compositions have been awarded prizes and performed by important institutions such as the Central Institute for Sound and Audiovisual Heritage (Istituto Centrale per i Beni Sonori e Audiovisivi).

A versatile musician, he has an extensive concert career spanning chamber music and jazz. As a soloist and with orchestras, he has performed works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Gershwin. Active in contemporary music, he has curated several world premieres and is a specialist in the music of George Gershwin.

In the educational field, he currently holds a piano teaching post at middle schools and is completing advanced studies in Composition for Music Applied to Images (Ordinamental Biennium). Selected for various projects, such as “Soloists with Orchestra” in Rome and the “Call for Young Performers” in 2018 and 2019 in Milan, he has won several international music competitions, including the Premio Novecento 2015 at the Luigi Nono Competition in Venaria Reale (Turin). More recently, he won the Stresa International Competition and the Grand Prix at the “Melos” International Competition at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome.

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