Emanuele Arciuli

The evening at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, part of the Chamber Music Season of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, featuring pianist Emanuele Arciuli, links two distant worlds yet connected by the theme of variation.

Emanuele Arciuli, a refined musician and profound connoisseur of contemporary American repertoire, opens with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Andante con Variazioni, a perfect example of classical elegance, continuing with Frederic Rzewski’s monumental cycle of 36 Variations on El pueblo unido jamás será vencido, a hymn of the Chilean resistance.

The Andante con Variazioni in F minore (Hoboken XVII:6), also known as Un piccolo divertimento, is a piano work composed by Haydn in 1793 and is among his most popular piano works. The Variations here are a set of double variations, where the first theme is in F minor and the second theme in F major.

The series of 36 Variations by American composer Frederic Rzewski, first performed in Washington in 1976, is based on the Chilean song ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! (The People United Will Never Be Defeated!), by Sergio Ortega and the musical group Quilapayún. The song on which the variations are based is one of the most famous inspired by the Popular Unity Coalition in Chile between 1969 and 1973, before the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende's government. Rzewski composed the Variations in 1975 as a tribute to the Chilean people's struggle against Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Rzewski's work is an exceptional fusion of politics, virtuosity, and poetry, transforming a popular song into an engaging musical journey, combining quotations, improvisations, and complex forms.

National Academy of Santa Cecilia - Chamber Music Season - Auditorium Parco della Musica - Rome

Haydn: Andante con Variazioni, Hob. XVII:6
Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 Variations on The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Photo: the Auditorium Parco della Musica official site