John Corigliano (1938-) is an American composer who has produced works in various mediums. He is best known for his first symphony and the score for the film Red Violin, which earned him an Oscar. (P.S. I have watched the film before, and while I was impressed by some of the music, I didn’t like the narrative, the scenes, and the story flow, so I didn’t like the film at the time. It felt kind of disorganized for me.)
With the success of the score for Red Violin, Corigliano arranged the music from the film score into various formats, one of which was this popular “Red Violin Caprices”, scored for the solo violin. The sixth caprices are in the form of variation, each of which is drawn from a scene where the “Anna’s Theme” appears in a varied form.
(0:00) Theme - The first caprice is based on the “Anna’s Theme”, which is the leitmotif for the wife (and the Red Violin too) of the fictional violin maker, Nicolò Bussotti, that produced the “Red Violin”. This violin was for Nicolò’s unborn son, but when his wife and son died, he infused his wife’s blood into the varnish, and produced his final masterpiece, the “Red Violin”. It is a slow, lullaby-like theme.
(1:31) Var.1 Presto - The first variation draws from “Etudes; Death of Kaspar”. The only variation in major, it features virtuosic arpeggios in the style of Baroque and Classical pieces. In the movie, this corresponds to the death of Kaspar Weiss (a child prodigy) from a heart defect. Due to the usage of comfortable positions and open strings, this sounds harder than it actually is, but the last repeat is quite tortuous, due to the immense speed required.
(2:09) Var.2 Con bravura - The second variation draws from “Pope's Gypsy Cadenza”. The violin (stolen from Weiss’ grave and now in the UK) comes into the possession of Lord Frederick Pope, who exchanges this violin from gypsies with hospitalities in his manor. In this variation, we can see many “gypsy” idioms that is also prevalent in many violin music of the 19th century, such as the harmonic scale, and virtuosic passages with left hand pizzicato. There are some unusual hand positions and 2nd/unison double stops (which is really hard to do), and the left hand picc would be hard to get at the first time, but like others in this piece, it is less difficult than it sounds.
(4:07) Var.3 Adagio, languid - The third variation draws from “Coitus Musicalis; Victoria's Departure”. Lord Pope’s muse, Victoria Byrd leaves temporarily to Russia, and Pope is in loneliness. I felt this kind of sounds like one of Paganini’s caprices. The octaves are always something really hard to get right, and it is necessary to care about the tone quality especially in this variation. It helps that it is a slow variation.
(5:20) Var.4 Slowly con rubato - The last two appear in the opposite sequence as the film. The fourth variation is based on “Pope's Betrayal”, which is when the returned Victoria learns about the Pope’s betrayal (he changed his muse into a Gypsy violinist). The fourth variation is a section of contrast, with the lyrical theme on extremely high positions, and rhythmic double/triple/quadruple stops.
(7:22) Var.5 Presto, pesante - The last variation is based on “Pope's Concert”, which comes before the “Pope’s Betrayal” in the film. This variation is the most rhythmic out of the 6, but in a romantic mood. The fifth variation sound especially “cool” once you get it right. Moreover, once you are at the level of it, this is probably one of the most “effective” violin pieces, as it sounds about 5 times harder than the actual difficulty. The wide arpeggios all fall comfortably in the hands, and the same goes for most notes. The only piece of (extreme) difficulty would be the parallel fifths in the middle.
Overall, it is a very dramatic and effective piece, that is very hard, but once you get through getting the notes right and the speed, there’s not much obstacles, unlike Bach or Mozart. So, if you believe you are at the level, get the score (only $13 on Amazon) and try this yourself!
Performed by Sergey Malov ( • The Red Violin Caprices )
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