Caprice D'adieu

The Caprice d Adieu (autograph unknown) is appended to Eduard Eliason s Six Caprices Caracteristiques pour le Violon, Op. 12, which was published in Mayence by B. Schott in 1833. This piece, which Paganini dedicated to Eliason, is part of a series of compositions for violin solo that have been widely ignored by both performers and scholars of the great Genoese musician. It is a composition whose size and structure (A-B-A, with two refrains) follows the pattern of some of his Capricci, Op. 1, but, unlike these proper studies, the Caprice d adieu is lighter and more lively in character. Although not as brilliant, musically, as the Capricci, it still contains some original musical ideas, mostly articulated in two parts with a few complex technical passages and a central, contrasting section featuring different dynamics and a range of chords and trills. This critical edition is based on the first edition and is collated with the most important nineteenth and twentieth-century editions.