This is another of the great themes from the genius of Paganini, probably second only to La Campanella (in my opinion -- I'm just obsessed with that piece) and certainly the most (in)famous of the caprices. All of the caprices were of the most virtuoso quality, and No. 24 in A minor manages not only to achieve similarly intractable levels of technical difficulty but also presents us with a beautiful, simple, compelling theme that is explored in many different forms. Also like La Campanella, there is quite a bit of history surrounding the piece and composers since Paganini's time have been doing cool things with it.
Here is Perlman playing Caprices 1, 5, and 24 (in that order). All I can really say about this performance is that it is, characteristically of Perlman, stunning. His clarity and subtlety of expression at points seem unparalleled.
On that note, Yo-Yo Ma, being equivalently good at cello, and probably having just transcended the entirety of standard cello repertoire, decided to play the caprice on the cello a few octaves lower. Wow.
So, Brahms wrote some really awesome variations for piano solo based on this theme. I really enjoy these because I feel that they continue exploring the idea presented in the caprice by implementing all sorts of textures and harmonies that cannot be rendered on the violin, as well as occasionally presenting an almost completely reworked melody to the same chords or introducing very interesting counterpoint between the original theme and some other melody. Here is Cziffra playing these variations.
Brahms inspired a later, much more obscure Polish composer named Witold Lutoslawski to also write variations, but this time for two pianos. Of course, in accordance with the difference in time period, Lutoslawski's variations are much more dissonant and abstract, which I personally enjoy. In this recording, Vladimir Lenin and some other guy play these variations. I'm just kidding, he just really looks like Lenin...
Rachmaninov, on the other hand, decided to take things in his own direction and composed his famous "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini." I actually don't like this piece quite as much as the other two sets of variations I've discussed, but it has a few really cool ideas. My favorite is the major-key inversion of the theme in the middle of the piece. I always find the idea of taking a theme and manipulating it through some series of reflections or rotations or other various geometric concepts interesting mostly for the novelty. Here, Rachmaninov plays his own work.
3 comments:
Got to see Perlman play some of these several years ago. Not only is he amazingly good but he made it look easy.
Man that dude in the other video does look like Lenin!
I think we are so fortunate to have recordings of Rachmaninov playing his own music. Strongly recommend the Ampico Piano recordings. Basically a very sophisticated player piano hat can capture and reproduce the more delicate aspects of the player. Its basically like getting to hear Rachmaninov himself play in a modern digital recording.
Oh yeah, I actually have the Ampico recordings. I was really surprised at his interpretations of some of his pieces, which make it obvious how much the standards have diverged from the composer's original vision of the piece. This was most striking to me with the famous Prelude in G minor... he adds in so much rubato and dynamic fluctuation where modern performers play it almost militantly. I think both have their merits but in this case I guess I tend to value Rachmaninov's idea more.
I thought though that the player piano had some unfortunate disadvantages... it seemed like it had difficulty playing large quantities of loud notes perfectly simultaneously for some reason and sometimes the dynamics seemed to do really counter-intuitive things that I wouldn't even attribute to Rachmaninov's idiosyncratic style... I was thinking it may have been some physical corruption of the rolls themselves, perhaps warping or something from humidity. They're still great recordings though.
Also, I don't get why they interviewed Lenin about technique at the end of the Lutoslawski video... the other guy was clearly playing more technically challenging things on average... whatever.
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