During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the stock-in-trade for most publishers was the sale of sheet music of short salon pieces for home performance. Elgar (1857 – 1934) wrote about ten of these pieces for violin and piano, which helped him to establish his reputation.
‘La Capricieuse’, written in 1891, is the second piece dedicated to his pupil Fred Ward (who must have been a particularly skilled violinist, to judge by the writing of the first piece ‘Bizzarerie’). This sparkling fantasy has been a popular encore piece for violinists ever since. So I decided to give clarinetists a chance to get to know this delightful piece!
Frédéric Matagne