La Commedia del Violino: Paganini's Comic Strains

Abstract

Is it not genuine humor, the romantic comical, that prevails in him?1 At the opening of Nicolò Paganini’s famous seventeenth caprice (Ex. 1), the violin puts on the mantle of a full orchestra and delivers a dramatic introduction, darkened by minor harmonies and by the timbre of the lower strings (mm. 1–3). After arriving on an expectant dominant chord, there enters a soloist figure who proceeds to deliver a cadenza (m. 4). The soloist’s line rises assertively and energetically, descends with a series of curly ornaments, and in a bold dismissal of the orchestra’s dark threat, tosses a few B-flats around the instrument. With the last B-flat—a stinging three-octave drop—the soloist has completely overturned the orchestra’s serious tone for a humorous one. This little burlesque triumph sets up the main body of the caprice, in which the roles of virtuoso soloist (upper strings) and orchestra (lower strings) are maintained, but transformed into a playful dialogue: the upper figure scurries and leads, the lower figure creeps and follows.2 Paganini’s characterization of these two roles is precise: the upper figure is teasing, elusive, metamorphic, becoming increasingly dizzying and vicious at mm. 16–19. The lower figure, by contrast, is plodding and predictable, with lethargic articulation, struggling at mm. 18–19 to keep composure and control amid the chromatic frenzy.