Rochberg: Caprice Variations - Eliot Fisk

ELIOT FISK Rochberg Caprice Variations liner notes

It was Ruggiero Ricci who first told me about George Rochberg's Caprice Variations, a huge work for unaccompanied violin consisting of fifty incredibly varied variations on the theme from Paganini's Capriccio number 24. By good luck George was at that time hard at work on a piece for flute and guitar for Paula Robison and me in honor of the Centennial of Carnegie Hall. So he very kindly sent me several copies of the score of the Variations. From the first moment I laid eyes on it, I felt this was a work destined for the guitar. Even the most difficult variations seemed to suggest something the guitar had "always wanted to do but had been afraid to ask." The very premise of the Caprice Variations, what George calls the "stylistic spread," is exactly what attracted me to the classical guitar in the first place. In live performances the performer is also free to determine the number and order of the variations. Thus each version can be tailor-made to the circumstances at hand -- a proposition that cannot fail to delight any performer. Indeed, I've never played the same group twice in all the many concerts in which I have played the Caprice Variations.