Skip to main content

Caprice no. 29


Back to etude-land with number 29! This one rips by: you know it's supposed to be fast with the marking of allegro assai. Obviously, scale work is a major theme in this caprice, but I was also surprised to find that bowing work was a big focus too. 

If you have read my other posts, you know that I believe Campagnoli was very specific in his compositions, and that one should not overlook his indications for bowings and fingering. So, I went against my instinct to correct for the bowing in the triplet section, starting at measure 21. What I found was very interesting and also made complete sense once I thought about it.
 

With the slur-dot pattern the temptation is always to play down-up. However, if you play strictly as it comes, sometimes, you will play up-down (mm. 26-28), and sometimes you will play down-up (mm. 21-25; 29-33). And at the very end of the caprice, you will end down-bow. All of this leads me to believe that Campagnoli knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to train the player to have wicked good bow control. Which is exactly the way I felt after learning this caprice!

I did make one little bowing correction, in measure 8. I displaced the slur break by one 16th-note in measure 8, to keep the pattern of the previous bowings.

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