Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky felt no compunction about

adding to the literature of such time-
honored genres as the symphony or the
thority of the eighteenth [sic] century. He
regarded it as a synonym of the fantasia,
which was a free form made up of fugato in-
concerto; but, radical musical thinker that strumental passages. This form enabled me
he was, he allowed himself the leeway to to develop my music by the juxtaposition of
rethink basic assumptions when he did in- episodes of various kinds which follow one
volve himself in those classic types. His list another and by their very nature give the
of works includes three items “in the pia- piece that aspect of caprice from which it
no concerto line,” but each departs in an takes its name.
obvious way from the classic formula of a
piano concerto. The one he actually titled He shared his work-in-progress with Sergei
Concerto (from 1923–24) is indeed a piano Prokofiev and Ernest Ansermet when they
concerto, but the accompanying ensemble dropped in to visit him during the summer of
consists only of winds, timpani, and dou- 1928, explaining that he was deriving inspi-
ble bass, rather than a standard symphony ration from the music of Carl Maria von We-
orchestra. The work he originally named ber. (In Dialogues and a Diary, he observed
Concerto for Piano and Groups of Instru- that Weber’s piano sonatas “may have exer-
ments was re-titled Movements (1958–59), cised a spell over me at the time I composed
and its serial processes do not involve the my Capriccio; a specific rhythmic device in
contrast between piano and “accompany- the Capriccio may be traced to Weber, at any
ing” ensemble one expects in a concerto. rate.”) Prokofiev passed on word to his friend
In between those two he wrote the Capric- Nikolai Miaskovsky, saying that Stravinsky
cio (1928–29), in which the piano does play
a concertante role but also works within a IN SHORT
framework of contrasting orchestral units
that harks back to the make-up of a Baroque Born: June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, now
concerto grosso. Stravinsky had been in Lomonosov, near St. Petersburg, Russia
demand as a soloist in his Concerto since Died: April 6, 1971, in New York City
unveiling it several years earlier, and this
Work composed: December 1928–November 9,
emboldened him to have a go at another
1929; revised slightly in 1949
work in which he might showcase himself as
pianist. Or, as he put it in his Autobiography: World premiere: December 6, 1929, at the
Salle Pleyel, Paris, by the Paris Symphony
Orchestra, Ernest Ansermet, conductor, with
I had so often been asked in the course of
the composer as soloist
the last few years to play my Concerto … that
I thought that it was time to give the public New York Philharmonic premiere:
another work for piano and orchestra. That January 14, 1937, with the composer as
conductor, Beveridge Webster, soloist
is why I wrote another concerto, which I
called Capriccio, that name seeming to in- Most recent New York Philharmonic
dicate best the character of the music. I had performance: March 6, 2012, David Zinman,
in mind the definition of a capriccio given conductor, Peter Serkin, soloist
by Praetorius, the celebrated musical au- Estimated duration: ca. 18 minutes

32 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

was determined not to call it a concerto so beginning quickly yields to a double-reed
as to avoid a repeat of the charges of insuf- texture that begs comparison to the deep-
ficient virtuosity that critics had leveled at oboe writing of Bach’s Passions, but then a
his earlier piano concerto. He was thinking central section erupts in hysterical panic.
of calling it a divertimento until (according Francis Poulenc wrote an admiring review
to Prokofiev) he learned that Prokofiev and of the Capriccio in 1931, and obviously its
Miaskovsky were both writing pieces under content stuck with him. He all but quoted
that title just then, at which point he veered a couple of passages in his own concertos,
away from that idea, too. particularly in his Organ Concerto of 1938.
Stravinsky began by composing the third Another admiring composer was Virgil
movement, the Allegro capriccioso; the idea Thomson, who judged Stravinsky’s Capriccio
of “capriccio” was therefore embedded in to be “jolly and brilliant.”
the score from the outset. Capricious this
music surely is, and irreverent, too, leap- Instrumentation: three flutes (one dou-
ing about with Jazz Age abandon. The first bling piccolo), two oboes and English horn,
movement is not less rambunctious; after two clarinets (one doubling E-flat clarinet
an exchange of pompous, Tchaikovskian and one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons,
outbursts at the beginning, it settles into four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
rhythmic punchiness and stops just short tuba, timpani, and strings (including a
of a tango. The second movement is per- “concertino” group of solo violin, viola, cello,
haps the most surprising of all. Its somber and bass), in addition to the solo piano.

Stravinsky and His Conductors

An entire book could be devoted to Stravinsky’s run-ins with con-
ductors. For some reason, his Capriccio engendered more than
its fair share of abrasive encounters, even giving rise to hurtful
incidents involving his devoted champions Ernest Ansermet and
Charles Munch. Since Stravinsky was preternaturally suspicious
of Germans, it comes as no surprise that one of his Teutonic
colleagues, Wilhelm Furtwängler, also came in for a rough
assessment, as reported in Themes and Episodes (1966), one of the
memoirs he prepared with his amanuensis, Robert Craft:

When I played my piano concerto under Furtwängler’s direction

in Leipzig and in Berlin, he was at the height of his reputation
(“the last of the great tradition,” people were saying, though
I thought myself it would be better to call him the first of the Stravinsky and Furtwängler,
small). … A few years after the Berlin performance, while on in an undated photo
vacation in the Villa d’Este at Como, I received a telegram from
Furtwängler requesting first-performance rights to my Capriccio. I replied that the piece had
already been played twenty times (this was in 1931), but that he was welcome to play it for
the twenty-first. I blame his telegram, and my less than perfect sobriety, for the misdemeanor
that has troubled my conscience, though slightly, in the years since. That night, walking be-
tween a pair of “Greek” statues on one of the Villa’s garden paths, I saw that the marble figures
were covered with tourists’ signatures, and took a pen myself and scrawled WILHELM VON DER
FURTWÄNGLER on the gluteus maximus of the most obviously ersatz Apollo.

JANUARY 2019 | 33