Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
Encyclopedia
The Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra was written by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

 between 1926 and 1929. The score was revised in 1949.

Stravinsky designed the Capriccio to be a virtuosic
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 vehicle which would allow him to earn a living from playing the piano part. The Capriccio, together with the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, belonged to a catalogue of breadwinning pieces which Stravinsky composed to support himself after fleeing the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

 to live in Western Europe.

History

The Allegro capriccioso movement that would become the finale was begun first, in Nice on Christmas Day 1928, and provided the musical material from which the other movements grew. It was followed by the second movement, completed at Echarvines on 13 September 1929, and then by the opening Presto. The orchestration of the first movement was completed on 26 October and that of the last movement on 9 November, 1929 (White 1979, 355–56).

The premiere took place in the Salle Pleyel, Paris, on December 6, 1929, with the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris conducted by Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians. Originally he was a...

 (who had founded the orchestra that winter season) and featuring the composer at the piano (White 1979, 94, 359). The next year, Stravinsky made a commercial recording of the work as soloist, with the Straram Orchestra, conducted by Ernest Ansermet (Hamilton 1971, 172). Beginning in the mind-1930s, Stravinsky's son Soulima often performed as soloist, most often with his father conducting (Johnston 1971, 15).

In 1949 Stravinsky corrected a number of misprints and omissions in the score, and this version was published in 1952. Unfortunately, a few new mistakes were added in this new edition, the most important of which was a change of the tempo marking at rehearsal number 14 from the original dotted-quaver = 88 to 80, which contradicts the specification that the semiquavers remain the same (White 1979, 359).

Amongst other influences on the Capriccio, Stravinsky very much had in mind Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

, whom he described as "a prince of music" (Fortner 1971, 30).

The three movements are played attacca (without interruption) and take just under twenty minutes to perform.
  • Presto
  • Andante rapsodico
  • Allegro capriccioso ma tempo giusto

Ballet productions

The score was first used as ballet music when Léonide Massine choreographed it in 1947 for the Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The décor for this production was by Nicola Benois. A second production was created in 1957 with choreography, décor, and costumes by Alan Carter (White 1979, 359).
The original 1929 version of the Capriccio was used by George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

 as the score for the Rubies section of his full length 1967 ballet Jewels
Jewels (ballet)
Jewels is an award-winning ballet in three parts created for New York City Ballet by co-founder and founding choreographer George Balanchine. It premièred on Thursday,...

(Anon. 1998–2011).
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