Skip to main content

Caprice No. 33



Caprice no. 33 is another favorite of mine. I chose to practice this in tandem with no. 17 for my first recording set. These pieces both inspired me with their longer, more developed forms.

I also love a good fugue, especially a minor fugue. As a violist, unless you regularly borrow from the violin repertoire, you probably haven't gotten many opportunities to play a solo fugue. A fugue written specifically for the viola is a treat indeed!


There are two main technical focuses for this caprice:

-Double, triple, and quadruple-stops
-Carrying a melodic line (fugue subject) through accompaniment


General Notes

I play this at a quick pace, as Campagnoli indicates cut time in the score. Feeling in two helps with phrasing and direction, otherwise the melody can get stuck - particularly with the heavy chords distributed throughout the work.

Throughout the piece I have marked double up-bows in cases where the bowing wants correction, not slurs. I assume that Campagnoli didn't want slurs unless he specifically marked them. Therefore, two up-bows should still sound like separate bowing.

Note that Campagnoli doesn't mark any dynamic indications until the last three measures. Use your imagination to fill in the blanks. This was a common expectation for performers in the early classical period. 

Exposition (mm. 1-12) 

As the Theme is introduced three times, each more elaborate in texture, make sure it doesn't get buried in the texture of chords.

m.9  The starting note of the fugue (D) is at the bottom of the chord. To further complicate matters, this is a very tricky double-stop as it requires the fourth finger to extend as much as possible. I physically couldn't play all three notes at the same time, so I rolled my hand over to catch the top note, following the motion of the bow.

Development (mm.13- 71)


mm. 30-34  I experimented with this sequence by attempting to sustain all of the half-notes through the moving eighth notes. This proved unsuccessful for particular measures, such as the first two beats of m.31: it was impossible to play all of the notes in tune. I decided in the end it was better to sustain the half-notes as long as possible without sacrificing intonation,.

mm. 57-64  On the third beat of every measure in this sequence, there is a slurred sextuplet figure, the first note of which is marked staccato. This is a minor detail, but it should not be ignored! I think it's meant to show that the staccato note belongs to the four eighth-notes preceding it, whereas the following five notes in the sextuplet lead to the next measure.

mm. 66-72  This chord progression seems to take the place of a return of the subject, which happens in standard fugue form. Since there are so many repeated triple-stops, experiment with how you break the chords. I play the bottom of the chords on the beat from mm. 70-71, since the bass line is driving the melody.  Contrastingly, from mm. 66-67 I try to bring out the melody in the middle voice by breaking the chords less.

Coda (mm.72-77)

Campagnoli launches right into the coda from the development.

mm.72-75  A "down-up" bowing in each measure is too awkward and would give too much emphasis to the downbeat, which should mark the end of each measure's direction. I've marked the same direction of bow for each measure, but there should still be a break in sound between the first two eighth-notes. A decrescendo is nice, since one can assume that the fortissimo marking at the end of m. 75 was meant to be a surprise.





Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

Background Two years ago, I assigned one of Bartolomeo Campagnoli's 41 Caprices for Viola, Op. 22 to a student of mine. At our lesson the following week, she told me she had searched for a recording online but couldn't find one. Listening to assigned pieces is a regular exercise for her (as for many of my students), and the fact that she couldn't find a recording hindered her progress that week. I went home that evening and began searching online for recordings of the caprices, and found they were sadly lacking. Campagnoli's Caprices for Viola are as difficult and musical as Paganini's 24 Caprices for Violin, yet as scarce as Paganini's are popular in representation. That's when I realized someone needed to change that. In fact, I could change it. I thought up a far-fetched dream to record all forty-one caprices. After practicing some of my favorite caprices and realizing their true difficulty, I got discouraged and put the thought away for a w

Caprice no. 40

Caprice number 40 was difficult to learn but ultimately fun and rewarding. As musically simple as it is, I think it's one of the flashiest pieces in the book. (Case in point: my recording engineer, Stuart Breczkinsi, decided this one should be the background piece for the introductory video to my project.)  The key of B Major makes the notes bright and cheerful on the viola. And the string crossing sections almost give it a fiddling/bluegrass feel (mm.27-37) . Of course, that style emerged from Baroque violin technique.  Don't be fooled by the eighth notes: this one should fly off your fingers (and bow) as the Vivace assai marking requests. As with any fast piece, practice working up your speed in very short bursts, at times only a measure. Always remember to land on the next downbeat so you can thread your section practice together into longer fragments.

Caprice no. 41

I couldn't think of a better way to end an epic book of caprices. Caprice number 41 is a grand bookend for a grand project. I used to think number 17 was my favorite, but this piece took the cake once I discovered it. It is joyful and stately. And the sonority it draws out of the instrument makes the solo viola sound like a chamber group.  Perhaps it's the crescendo of energy and sound output. This can heard and also clearly seen in the music, at about  measure 26 , going on to the end of the piece. Double-stops and bariolage, and sometimes both at once, make the viola into a mini-organ. This was my favorite section to play because I felt awash in sound.  This piece mostly tries to be a fugue, but also reaches for something greater. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the fourth movement of Hindemith's Op.11, No.5 sonata (another favorite of mine). The Hindemith obviously came later, and is much longer and more fantastical. But both pieces give you the feeling that you have bee