Oliver Knussen’s Variations for piano were composed in 1989 and premiered by Peter Serkin. Although they are concise – the twelve variations play for a little more than six minutes in all – the composer integrates some highly contrasted textural and expressive approaches to a very limited amount of raw material (the theme is itself variations on its first six notes) within a three-part dramatic design: an initial group of five character-variations, a central pa...