''Caprice bohémien'', Op. 12, also known as the "Capriccio on Gypsy Themes", is a

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

for orchestra composed by

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

from 1892 to 1894.

History

Rachmaninoff began work on the piece in the summer of 1892, writing in August in a letter to his friend, the baritone Mikhail Slonov, that he would write the composition for

piano four hands Piano four hands (french: À quatre mains, german: Zu vier Händen, Vierhändig, it, a quattro mani) is a type of piano duet involving two players playing the same piano simultaneously. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is ...

first, and orchestrate it at a later date. Rachmaninoff completed this orchestral version two years later, halfway through the September of 1894. Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to Pyotr Lodyzhensky, the wife of the gypsy Anna Alexandrovna Lodyzhenskaya, to whom he later dedicated his First Symphony. The piece was given its premiere in Moscow, on 22 November 1894, with Rachmaninoff himself conducting, as part of a tour with the violinist

Teresina Tua Maddalena Maria Teresa Tua (23 April 1866 – 28 October 1956) was a prominent Italian violinist who demonstrated her musical talents from an early age. Biography Born in Turin on 23 April 1866, Maddalena Maria Teresa Tua was the daughter of ...

. Rachmaninoff later went on to form a strong dislike for the piece. In 1908, he called it one of three of his compositions which "frightened" him, and would like to make revisions to, along with his First Piano Concerto and First Symphony, though he didn't ever revise the capriccio. In 1930, he described it as the only one of his works which he would "prefer to disown".

Structure

The work is in the keys of E minor and E major, and is split into three sections. The first section, marked ''Allegro vivace'', opens to the beating of the

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

, with the music developing through slow and dramatic chords voiced by the low woodwinds and mirrored by the low brass. A short interlude in the high winds brings the piece to a vibrant outburst, led by the strings, in a motif echoed multiple times throughout the piece. The middle section of the piece, marked ''Lento lugubre'', is slow and drawn-out, and features a pedal point on E minor. The work's concluding section, in contrast, has the orchestra rebuild to a loud and lively climax, and after a short and powerful respite in B minor, the composition ends in a blaring E major chord. Rachmaninoff began writing the capriccio shortly after the completion of his opera ''

Aleko The Moskvitch-2141, also known under the trade name Aleko (Russian: "АЛЕКО", derivative from the name of the automaker "Автомобильный завод имени Ленинского Комсомола", ''Avtomobilny zavod imeni Leni ...

'', a work similarly centered around gypsy themes, and the piece contains several references to the opera. The work has been compared to

Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...

's ''

Capriccio espagnol ''Capriccio espagnol'', Op. 34, is the common Western title for a five movement orchestral suite, based on Spanish folk melodies, composed by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. It received its premiere on 31 October 1887, in St ...

'' and

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

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Capriccio Italien The ''Capriccio Italien'', Op. 45, is a fantasy for orchestra composed between January and May 1880 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It premiered 18 December, 1880 (New System) in Moscow, conducted by Nikolay Rubinstein.Symphonic poems by Sergei Rachmaninoff 1894 compositions