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Towards an Understanding of the Capriccio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Philip Whitmore
Philip Whitmore*
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford
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Extract

An extended, unaccompanied violin passage labelled ‘Capriccio’ occurs towards the end of the first and last movements of each of the 12 solo violin concertos, op. 3, by Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695–1764). These concertos, all of which observe the three-movement fast-slow-fast layout, were published in 1733 by Le Cène in Amsterdam under the title L'arte del violino, but were probably written in the late 1720s. The capriccios may last up to a few pages, and some are longer than the whole of the rest of the movement to which they belong.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 113 , Issue 1 , 1988 , pp. 47 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Royal Musical Association

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References

1 It is true that some first movements are marked ‘andante’, but in every case the middle movement is either an ‘Adagio’ or a ‘Largo’ It might be more accurate to speak of a fast-slow-fast relationship See Joan Luce, The Virtuosity and Unique Role of the Caprices for Solo Violin in Pietro Antonio Locatelli's ‘L'arte del violino‘ (Ann Arbor, 1979), 28-9Google Scholar

2 The solo violin and basso parts of the first edition have been published in facsimile, ed. Paul van Reijen (Amsterdam, 1981) The editor deduces from the terms of the dedication that the concertos had been performed in Venice in the presence of the dedicatee, Girolamo Michiel Lini, a Venetian nobleman, before Locatelli settled in Amsterdam c. 1729 See facsimile, Introduction, p vGoogle Scholar

3 The title-page reads as follows. ‘XII Concerti. con XXIV Capricci ad Libitum, che si potrà Finire al Segno ⨳’ (‘XII Concertos. with XXIV Capriccios ad Libitum, which it is possible to finish at the sign ⨳’)Google Scholar

4 In the introduction to the facsimile edition of these concertos (p viii), van Reijen suggests that abbreviation rather than omission of the capriccio is implied by the sign which appears on the title-page and in every outer movement While abbreviation would certainly be a musically acceptable procedure, it must be reaffirmed that omission would be equally acceptable, and that Locatelli specifically indicated the latter rather than the former The exceptional placing of the sign at the end of the four movements in which the capriccio is preceded by dominant harmony, and the finality of the cadences at the points where the sign normally appears, leave little room for doubt that the sign served to indicate an optional conclusionGoogle Scholar

5 See, for example, Boyden, David D, The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 (London, 1965), 464-6Google Scholar

6 Quantz, Johann Joachim, Versuch einer Anweisung, die Flote traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752), trans and ed Edward R. Reilly as On Playing the Flute (2nd edn, London, 1985), 179-95Google Scholar

7 Tartini, Giuseppe, Traité des agréments de la musique (Paris, 1771, written c 1752), trans and ed Erwin R. Jacobi (Celle and New York, 1961), 117-25Google Scholar

8 Turk, Daniel Gottlob, Klavierschule (Halle, 1789), trans and ed Raymond H Haggh as School of Clavier Playing (Lincoln and London, 1982), 297-309.Google Scholar

9 This capriccio is a complete movement in itself, not a part of a larger whole like those from the concertos of op 3 It constitutes the fifth and final movement of the sonataGoogle Scholar

10 Quantz, , Versuch, chapter XV, paragraph 17, p. 185; Johann Friedrich Agricola, Anleitung zur Singekumt (Berlin, 1757), 204.Google Scholar

11 The shortest Capriccio in L'arte del violino is found in the finale of concerto no. 10: it lasts for 30 bars of common time, and requires a cadenza thereafter.Google Scholar

12 Jacobi, Erwin R., ‘G. F. Nicolai's Manuscript of Tartini's Regole per ben manar il violino‘. The Musical Quarterly, 47 (1961), 207-23 (p. 219).Google Scholar

13 In the third movements of RV 212a, 268, 507, 562, 583 and 213 and of I–Vc B 55, no 133, item 2 (ff 5v-6) The first six of these concertos are printed with written-out capriccios in Le opere di Antonio Vivaldi, ed Gian Francesco Malipiero (Rome, 1947–) The final item survives in a manuscript collection of the solo parts to a group of concertos mostly by Vivaldi written for Anna Maria, one of the women musicians from the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, the partbook is currently located in the Biblioteca del conservatorio di musica ‘Benedetto Marcello’ in Venice Other written-out capriccios occur in this manuscript, in a variant version of RV 213 on f 35 (RV 213a) and in a concerto of doubtful authenticity (RV Anhang 74) on f 37v See Sven Hansell, review of Remo Grazotto, Antonio Vivaldi (Milan, 1965) in The Musical Quarterly, 61 (1975), 605-6Google Scholar

14 In the third movements of RV 208, 340 and 179a (‘Anna Maria Partbook’, f 61)Google Scholar

15 Of the authentic examples listed in note 13 above, six are separated from the cadence by a silence, and one (in RV 583) is elided with the cadence The capriccio occurring in the doubtfully authentic concerto, RV Anh 74, however, is preceded by a dominant seventh harmony There is a case for interpreting a passage towards the end of the finale of RV 581 (bars 355-81 in the version given in Le opere, lv) as a capriccio, setting out from dominant harmony and concluding with a written-out cadenza, but the passage is not labelled at allGoogle Scholar

16 At the end of the ‘Anna Maria Partbook’ are three violin cadenzas — they are genuine cadenzas and not capriccios If they are by Vivaldi, then they offer further evidence of the existence of both types in Vivaldi's music, in spite of the common label No indication of their authorship is provided, however. Anna Maria, at least, seems to have included both cadenzas and capriccios in her performancesGoogle Scholar

17 Only one of Locatelli's capriccios (that of the first movement of op 3 no 9) makes extensive use of thematic material from the surrounding movement Others borrow certain patterns of figuration on a more or less casual basis Only four (see above) occur within a cadential contextGoogle Scholar

18 Dounias, Minos, Die Violinkonzerte Giuseppe Tartinis (Wolfenbuttel, 1935) A catalogue is included, from which the information given in note 19 is takenGoogle Scholar

19 Nos 39, 43, 46, 47, 48, 75, 81, 90 and 93Google Scholar

20 Nos 15, 71, 85, 88 and 91 Sources vary with regard to the inclusion or omission of capriccios – the concertos listed here are available in printed editions in which the capriccios are not suppliedGoogle Scholar

21 Dounias, (Die Violinkonzerte Giuseppe Tartinis, 270) wrongly maintains that the finale of D 61 contains a 20-bar cadenza, in fact it contains a 20-bar cadential capriccio of which the last five bars are labelled ‘cadenza’ The manuscript sources in the Paris Conservatoire which Dounias lists in his thematic catalogue are now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale, and the shelf-marks have been changed; MSS 11226-8 are now shelved as MSS 9793-5Google Scholar

22 Dounias, , Die Violinkonzerte Giuseppe Tartinis, 98Google Scholar

23 Ibid., 106Google Scholar

24 Tartini, , Traité, 117-18Google Scholar

25 An example of such a capriccio occurs in the first of eight keyboard concertos by Adolf Carl Kunzen, preserved in a manuscript in the Library of the Conservatoire royal de musique in Brussels, shelf-mark 6127Google Scholar

26 It may be observed in this connection that the first of a number of editions of Locatelli's capriccios detached from the surrounding concerto movements was published in 1824 by Frey in Paris and dedicated to the memory of Viotti See Luce, The Virtuosity and Unique Role of the Caprices, 29Google Scholar

27 The only criterion for distinguishing between the two in such doubtful cases is the clarity of articulation of the cadential context In the case of a cadenza, the cadence which is to be prolonged thereby is drawn forcibly to the listener's attention, either by an interruption of the metre, or else by means of certain conventional signals that a cadenza is about to follow -typically involving chromatic movement in the bass leading to a sustained dominant, perhaps with syncopations in the upper strings, or dotted rhythms, and an inverted pedal In the instances mentioned of capriccios preceded by a dominant harmony no such clear articulation of the cadential context is to be found.Google Scholar

28 Repeated patterns and suggestions of regular metre are more commonly found in violin cadenzas than in other types, Quantz specifically warns against such thingsGoogle Scholar

29 Including many of those by Tartini, see also note 17 above.Google Scholar

30 Turin, Biblioteca nazionale, Renzo Giordano Collection, tome V, no 21, ff 167-81 For a discussion of the autograph see Peter Ryom, ‘La Comparaison entre les versions différentes d'un concerto d'Antonio Vivaldi transcrit par J S Bach’, Dansk Aarbog for Musikforskning (1966-7), 91-111 (pp. 96ff)Google Scholar

31 Schwerin, Mecklenburgische Landesbibliothek, shelf-mark 5565, see Ryom, ‘La Comparaison entre les versions différentes d'un concerto’, 102.Google Scholar