Unknown variations (?)

[panic]

I was walking through the practice center at college today and I saw one student practicing what I was pretty sure was a set of variations, in what seemed a late (possibly forward-looking middle) Romantic style. I couldn't identify them myself through the door so I was wondering if this description rang any bells for anyone.

-There looked to be around 20-25 variations.
-Variations 18 and 19 were in D minor, so I would wager a guess that that was the overall key.
-I think it was a solo work. Variation 19 had a separate stave on the first page but I don't remember one on the second page, so it might have been an Ossia. I might be wrong though.
-The score looked pretty brutal, to say the least, and the sound was very intense. The texture was thick and virtuosic but also full of motion. It looked like a flying and more mobile Reger texture, or a violent and temperamental fusion of Rachmaninoff/Medtner and Brahms. It also definitely used the whole of the keyboard. Variation 18 looked to have a good amount of flying octaves but was not exclusively focused on them.
-Variation 19 ended with a downward scale into a half cadence with the bottom an octave on low E.

[ahinton]

I was walking through the practice center at college today and I saw one student practicing what I was pretty sure was a set of variations, in what seemed a late (possibly forward-looking middle) Romantic style. I couldn't identify them myself through the door so I was wondering if this description rang any bells for anyone.

-There looked to be around 20-25 variations.
-Variations 18 and 19 were in D minor, so I would wager a guess that that was the overall key.
-I think it was a solo work. Variation 19 had a separate stave on the first page but I don't remember one on the second page, so it might have been an Ossia. I might be wrong though.
-The score looked pretty brutal, to say the least, and the sound was very intense. The texture was thick and virtuosic but also full of motion. It looked like a flying and more mobile Reger texture, or a violent and temperamental fusion of Rachmaninoff/Medtner and Brahms. It also definitely used the whole of the keyboard. Variation 18 looked to have a good amount of flying octaves but was not exclusively focused on them.
-Variation 19 ended with a downward scale into a half cadence with the bottom an octave on low E.

From your description, it doesn't immediately ring any bells with me (although I confess not to have given it a great deal of searching thought), but why not just go and ask the student who was practising it?!

Best,

Alistair

[Kassaa]

Rachmaninoff Variations on a theme by Corelli Op.42 in D minor.

[ahinton]

Rachmaninoff Variations on a theme by Corelli Op.42 in D minor.

I had wondered if it might have been that - but again I was abit puzzled as to how "panic" reckoned to be so certain as to which number variation was which, from a vantage point outside a practice room door. This splendid work does indeed have 20 variations and the penultimate one fits his description, so I guess that this is indeed the work he heard.

Best,

Alistair

[panic]

Makes sense. Thanks guys.

BTW, the doors are made of glass, so I saw "Var. XVIII" and XIX through the door.

[dnephi]

And that var 19 does have an extended Ossia, but he leaves you to figure out the rest of the ossia after about a page.